Remember that story about El Paso Municipal Court judges sending poor people to jail because they can’t pay their traffic tickets?
In El Paso, where 1 in 5 people live below the poverty line, judges at the municipal court regularly send people to jail without holding a poverty hearing or offering community service. BuzzFeed News reviewed 100 of the court’s case files for people jailed for at least five days last year. Not a single one indicated that the judge had considered — or even inquired about — the defendant’s ability to pay before locking them up.
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It violates Texas law and two unanimous Supreme Court decisions, all of which bar courts from jailing people simply because they are too poor to pay their fines. One of the Supreme Court decisions even stemmed from a traffic case in Texas.
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to let people do community service than putting them in jail? Who, exactly, are we punishing? The taxpayer?
Besides, it’s illegal.