I heard this in a pub and didn’t know whether to believe it or not. It seems absurd on the face of it. What if you can’t pay? Are you evicted? Or could a 30-day jail sentence turn into a lifetime as they keep re-sentencing you for inability to pay? Would this even be constitutional? The ways of you Americans can be confusing, although to be honest the ways of my fellow Englishmen can seem equally bizarre at times.
Considering that you can be forced to pay for court-ordered drug tests as part of your probabtion, nothing the US system does surprises me.
You can be charged in the UK too, or at least compensation for wrongful convictions is reduced from the figure awarded in order to take room and board into account.
I’m sorry, what is wrong with that? Probation is not a right. It is a voluntary program you enter into in lieu of jail. If you don’t like the conditions of probation don’t accept it. There are a lot more onerous conditions that could be imposed such as electronic monitoring, unannounced inspections, warrantless searches…
Especially the sanctimonious lecturing they like to give to the rest of the world about Human rights, freedomTM.
End of hijack,the linked article in another post, does not make it clear if the charges are for regular stuff, like food, board, clothes etc, which is insane, or if they are for stuff above and beyond, which they might be allowed to buy.
So it basically creates a debtor’ prison… If you can afford life on the outside, plus this extra penalty, you can go free. if you can’t, you violate your parole and go back to jail, or you stay in jail, or you rack up debt that makes future life that much less desirable.
that’s why they put you on the chain gang so that you can earn your keep.
Using that logic no fines or restitution should ever be imposed. Being found guilty of a crime often has a financial burden. Should there never be a fine imposed? Should victim’s families never be compensated? Should only the law abiding taxpayers carry the financial burden of someone else’s crime? The only way a court has to force compliance with their financial based parts of the sentence is to give out jail time for contempt. The false equivalence of debtors prison does not change that.
I think these two paragraphs from the OP’s link point out exactly what the problem is:
These programs cost us money.
We are talking about two different things. md2000 is using his usual deep knowledge of the U.S. legal system to say that making those who want to not be in jail pay for periodic drug testing while on parole is the same as debtors prison.
The article that was posted about charging many fees to prisoners while they are locked up has a lot of problems. Smaller communities are trying to find ways to defray costs but have not looked for the unintended consequences. That is entirely different issue.
I know someone who got a dui here in CA. They were given the option of (I think it was) 10 days in county jail with the possibility of early release or paying around 150 per weekend to just do a flat 4 days in city jail over two weekends.
A situation where this raises money is for drunk driving convictions–the sentences are short and the defendants are often middle class.
1st time conviction in OH = automatic jail time OR you can pay to spend a weekend at a hotel.
Seriously? Do you get to choose the hotel? Spend a weekend at the Ritz? Or invite your sweetie to the Sybaris?