So what I'm hearing you talk about is the effects of poverty on

one's likelihood of getting a true justice in a sense that the process itself was just.

Hmm.

Is that right?

Yeah absolutely. You know,

and I think more and more today we understand just how

harmful poverty is to the individuals from the time they're born,

all the way through their their lifetime.

More than any other factor in a child's life,

living in poverty has negative consequences and

that doesn't change when somebody becomes an adult and they're still in poverty.

The impacts of poverty across the gamut are extremely harmful.

And that you know, that exists in the criminal justice system,

and exists in the education system,

exists pretty much everywhere.

Well, when we were at the courthouse,

I was struck by the fact that most of

the people that were being processed through the system were poor.

Of course, anybody can commit a crime.

But I was struck that in our country,

the courts are filled with people who have been poor or are poor.

Is that is that true and do you have a figure that you would put to that?

That is true. And in terms of figures to put to that,

I think there are general figures most,

most research out there I would say

80 to 90 percent of the people who are coming through any court system,

whether it's in Nashville or in Tennessee or in other States,

qualify for court appointed counsel which means 80 to 90 percent of the people coming

through criminal justice systems are living in poverty.

Yes, anybody can commit a crime,

but again we go back to how poverty impacts individuals.

If you are born into a neighborhood that is

an impoverished neighborhood there are disadvantages that you are going

to face just by virtue of that.

Those surroundings that place you at

a higher risk of going into the criminal justice system,

that's what the Cradle to Prison Pipeline is about.

So yeah, the majority of people who are

coming through the court system are living in poverty.

There's lots of reasons I'm sure and lots of studies about

why it is that wealthier people don't wind up in the court system.

But, you know it's not that they don't commit crime.

There is, you know I think

most research today shows that individuals use drugs and sell drugs.

You know a class across socio-economic classes and against

across racial and ethnicity classes equally.

It's an equal opportunity in behavior.

But the way we police in this country,

we police more heavily in impoverished neighborhoods because

often the logic behind that is that crime rates are considered to be higher there.

Reported crime rates.

And so there's heavier policing in those areas which leads to heavier arrests

within poor communities and funneling of people into the criminal justice system.

Same behaviors are going on in middle class and upper class neighborhoods but people

have private spaces where they can engage in criminal behavior and it doesn't,

it just doesn't come to the attention of

the authorities nearly as much as people who live in

poor communities who are often relegated to public,

more public spaces for where they engage in

the same kinds of behaviors that

wealthier people might do in behind the closed doors of their home.

So one factor is policing.

That it's easier and more likely to police poor communities.

But another factor that's sometimes mentioned that I want you to reflect on is that

we also criminalize behaviors of poor people sometimes,

so homelessness or vagrancy laws disproportionately affect the poor.

Do you see that in your office?

We do. What we have and a what we call,

a misdemeanor jail docket in Nashville.

And everybody on that docket is charged with a minor misdemeanor offense.

We see individuals who cycle through that docket sometimes on

a weekly if not occasionally daily basis where they're coming in,

they go to court, the case is resolved,

they get back out, within 24 to 48 hours they're arrested again.

And mostly what we're seeing are individuals charge of public intoxication or

criminal trespass or disorderly conduct, loitering.

So we've seen folks charged with littering,

you know folks who don't have anywhere to go to sleep,

they may go up under

an interstate bypass and it's a no trespassing sign there and they get arrested.

Public indecency.

So somebody who uses the restroom in a public place.

And so yeah, we see a lot of that and there aren't

any real good solutions to that at this point.

The funding for, I think when we

talk about poverty and the intersection of criminal justice system,

the resources that are available for individuals who suffer from drug addiction,

from mental health problems from

both and who are homeless don't have a place to go at night.

The resources that exist for people living in poverty,

they don't have insurance,

they don't have somewhere where they can go and get good substance abuse treatment.

If you are somebody who's wealthier you may have insurance,

health insurance that will cover that,

you may have a family that can cover

the cost of inpatient treatment or outpatient treatment.

People living in poverty don't have access to that kind of care.

And we as a nation many years ago decided that we were going to adopt policies and

laws that treated substance abuse

as a criminal justice problem instead of a public health problem.

And so we are now reaping the consequences of that with individuals who are,

prosecuted for possession of drugs, selling drugs,

using drugs and prosecuted for behaviors that oftentimes are

the product of addiction that goes

untreated or mental health problems that that is going untreated.

We see a number of individuals that come through

our court system who are seriously mentally

ill. Who are engaging in behaviors in public that might be assaultive,

that do make out the elements potentially of a crime.

But what's motivating their conduct is the fact that

they are seriously mentally ill and not

able to oftentimes control their behaviors, or behave rationally.

And so those folks are now coming into our jails.

The jail has become the number one mental institution in the in the county.

You know that the number of people who are in jail beds who have been diagnosed with

serious and persistent mental illness is higher than

the number of people in the local mental hospital.

So it's a real problem.

Can we chat a little bit about the economic consequences of going through the process?

I mean you've already indicated that a little bit so they have,

to they have to pay a bond company with money they'll never get back.

And they may have to pay fees and fines.

Yes.

So it's a little ironic that one of the reasons that they're in there is because they're

poor and yet the very process is impoverishing, impoverishing them more.

Yes. And there's, people are really starting to wake up to that reality as well.

Probably one of the biggest ironies in the system is that,

one of the costs that you can be assessed as somebody if you are convicted

and you get a court costs bill here in Nashville is a pre-trial detention,

daily pre-trial detention fee.

So that's $44 a day in Nashville.

If you remain in custody pre-trial if you are convicted,

your court costs bill will include a charge of

$44 a day for every day is spent in jail pre-trial.

And it amounts to court costs bills for some of our clients in the thousands of dollars.

And that's not the only thing.

The court costs bills today have it, have fines,

have fees, have taxes attached to them forever for all kinds of things.

So clients face court costs bills a minimum of

a hundred and twenty dollars for the most minor offense,

up to tens of thousands of dollars for cases that

were extended and took a long time to resolve.

And you know since 2011 there is a law passed in Tennessee that if you don't

pay those court costs within a year or somehow get on a payment plan,

your driver's license gets suspended which only further perpetuates

the cycle of debt and criminal justice involvement.

But people are starting to wake up to that.

There was an article in USA Today a couple of weeks

ago about the damage that this court debt

cause to individuals and how it doesn't really make

much public safety sense or much good sense for,

for most of our communities.

It doesn't help to have people driving and people are going to drive in

Asheville and they're going to drive on a suspended license if they have to,

to get their kids to school, to get to work,

to just do the things that many of us take for

granted when we get in our cars every day and

drive somewhere to get through our daily lives.

Imagine your day without

a driver's license in Nashville and all of the things you have to do.

And could you do that with public transportation or bumming a

ride from a friend or on a bicycle.

And the answer to that oftentimes is no.

it would be very difficult to do that.

Dawn Deaner: “The Impact of Poverty on Justice”

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