Not A Crime To Be Poor: The Criminalization Of Poverty In America
by Peter Edelman /
2017 / English / EPUB
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In addition to exposing racially biased policing, the Justice
Department’s
In addition to exposing racially biased policing, the Justice
Department’sFerguson Report
Ferguson Report exposed to the world a
system of fines and fees levied for minor crimes in Ferguson,
Missouri, that, when they proved too expensive for Ferguson’s
largely poor, African American population, resulted in jail
sentences for thousands of people.
exposed to the world a
system of fines and fees levied for minor crimes in Ferguson,
Missouri, that, when they proved too expensive for Ferguson’s
largely poor, African American population, resulted in jail
sentences for thousands of people.
As former staffer to Robert F. Kennedy and current Georgetown law
professor Peter Edelman explains in
As former staffer to Robert F. Kennedy and current Georgetown law
professor Peter Edelman explains inNot a Crime to Be
Poor
Not a Crime to Be
Poor, Ferguson is everywhere in America today. Through money
bail systems, fees and fines, strictly enforced laws and
regulations against behavior including trespassing and public
urination that largely affect the homeless, and the substitution
of prisons and jails for the mental hospitals that have
traditionally served the impoverished, in one of the richest
countries on Earth we have effectively made it a crime to be
poor.
, Ferguson is everywhere in America today. Through money
bail systems, fees and fines, strictly enforced laws and
regulations against behavior including trespassing and public
urination that largely affect the homeless, and the substitution
of prisons and jails for the mental hospitals that have
traditionally served the impoverished, in one of the richest
countries on Earth we have effectively made it a crime to be
poor.
Edelman, who famously resigned from the administration of Bill
Clinton over welfare "reform," connects the dots between these
policies and others including school discipline in poor
communities, child support policies affecting the poor, public
housing ordinances, addiction treatment, and the specter of
public benefits fraud to paint a picture of a mean-spirited,
retributive system that seals whole communities into inescapable
cycles of poverty.
Edelman, who famously resigned from the administration of Bill
Clinton over welfare "reform," connects the dots between these
policies and others including school discipline in poor
communities, child support policies affecting the poor, public
housing ordinances, addiction treatment, and the specter of
public benefits fraud to paint a picture of a mean-spirited,
retributive system that seals whole communities into inescapable
cycles of poverty.