An important column for the holidays should make us realize that justice and freedom are quite literally for sale and tragically out of reach for the growing number of broke-ass people in this state who don't have the cash to pay local nuisance fees which serve mostly as defacto taxes on the poor . . . By way of both Republicans & the minority Democratic Party . . . There's a move to ease draconian crackdowns by municipal courts and keep people out of jail just because they're broke.
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Read more:
Messenger: Time for Missouri's leaders to put the debtors' prison band back together
SALEM, Mo. * Amy Murr turned the tables on me. We were sitting at J.B. Malone's, a restaurant at the T intersection where Missouri Highway 72 heading southeast from Rolla runs into Highway 32. It's a crossroads of sorts, which is where Murr's life has been after several interactions with the law.
I pass. Can’t read the article without filling out the stupid questionnaire.
ReplyDeleteMad respect to StL Post-Dispatch for not letting go of these stories. It is a testament to the vital importance of actual attention-span print journalism which takes money, time, institutional clout and continuity, etc. It's not as simple as weblogging. Messenger has revealed some outrageous debtor prisons being run out of the Dent County, St Francois county and other circuit courts. There should never be private profits off our criminal justice system!
ReplyDelete-radish