Being poor is very expensive

During his time overseeing the annual city budget process, Mitch Landrieu used to talk about the drying up of state and federal aid to cities by telling us "the cavalry was no longer coming" from Baton Rouge and Washington. Because we've spent several decades now dismantling federal policies intended to help cities house, feed, and educate and care for their populations, our cities have undergone a bloody cycle of deterioration, privatization, and, finally, reclamation as places that only the wealthy can afford to live comfortably.  Of course, Mitch's policy response was mainly focused on conforming to rather than resisting these circumstances but at least he understood the problem.

Not that that was ever much help to the non-wealthy people of New Orleans who, over the course of what we euphemistically refer to as this city's "recovery" from the Katrina disaster, faced the hardships of diminished services, increased cost of living, the privatization of their schools, and the selling off of their neighborhoods to predatory investors.  All the while this was going on, Mitch continually warned of a time when even the federal disaster aid would run out and the city would be on the hook to cover the costs of repairing and maintaining its vital infrastructure.

The main part of Mitch's strategy for dealing with this was to do everything he could to encourage the rapid gentrification of New Orleans. Never mind that this necessarily meant the city would have to become a glorified resort where nobody actually lives. Anything to keep inflating those property values, and hopefully, the potential tax revenue along with them. Outside of this, the strategy in New Orleans has been little different from what cities all over the country have done to fill their growing budget gaps.  Namely, they've gotten more and more aggressive about shaking down the poor. 

In areas hit by recession or falling tax revenue, fines and fees help pay the bills. (The costs of housing and feeding inmates can be subsidized by the state.) As the Fines and Fees Justice Center, an advocacy organization based in New York, has documented, financial penalties on the poor are now a leading source of revenue for municipalities around the country. In Alabama, for example, the Southern Poverty Law Center took up the case of a woman who was jailed for missing a court date related to an unpaid utility bill. In Oregon, courts have issued hefty fines to the parents of truant schoolchildren. Many counties around the country engage in civil forfeiture, the seizure of vehicles and cash from people suspected (but not necessarily proven in court) of having broken the law. In Louisiana, pretrial diversion laws empower the police to offer traffic offenders a choice: Pay up quickly, and the ticket won’t go on your record; fight the ticket in court, and you’ll face additional fees.

As that Times article shows us, poor people in cities all over the country can be sucked into a suffocating spiral of imprisonment and legal fees by something as simple as an expired brake tag. But perhaps the tide is turning. 

Late last year, a federal judge ruled that Orleans Criminal Court's fee structure was tantamount to the operation of an unconstitutional "debtor's prison." Presumably steps are being taken to rectify this. But a lasting solution has not yet become evident. Mayor Cantrell ran on a promise to take down the city's hated traffic cameras which she herself criticized for "nickel and diming" the citizenry. But, as we've seen, she's really only partially lived up to that promise. Basically the money still has to come from somewhere. And while we appear to be getting better at recognizing it shouldn't come from those least able to pay, we've only just begun to where it probably ought to come from instead. And that is still going to be a fight.

Gayle is woke now

So here is something you don't see every day.  Roger Goodell was at Orleans Parish Debtor's Prison Magistrate Court yesterday watching the mayor's father in law work. 

Saints players Benjamin Watson and Demario Davis watched as Magistrate Judge Harry Cantrell set $1,500 bail for a disabled man accused of cocaine possession.

Afterward, one observer said it was impossible to hear the clink of the defendants' metal shackles without thinking of slavery. Goodell agreed.

“I was just overwhelmed with sadness,” Watson said. “Their lives are never going to be the same, whether they’re guilty or innocent.”

The indelible image of a powerful sports executive mixing with the poor and desperate came courtesy of the Players Coalition. NFL players created the social justice organization last year in the wake of protests by Colin Kaepernick and other players who refused to stand during the national anthem in response to police killings of black people.

The Players Coalition organized a daylong symposium Tuesday on the criminal justice system at the Orleans Public Defenders office that was also attended by Saints owner Gayle Benson and defensive end Cam Jordan.

It's hard to gauge whether or not this sort of thing is ultimately more helpful or harmful at least as it regards figures like Gayle and Roger.  The only reason they're there in the first place is because players like Watson and Davis joined a protest movement that caused their bosses a  big PR problem.  On the one hand, it's good that someone did this to them. On the other hand, now the bosses can turn it into an opportunity to buy themselves some woke cred.

Meanwhile, Benson made an impromptu offer of office space in Benson Tower to Syrita Steib-Martin, the executive director of Operation Restoration, which helps women and girls re-entering society after prison stints.

Gayle shouldn't be allowed to get off so easily.  Keep in mind the office space she's so graciously offered here only comes to her via a corrupt deal the state entered into with her late husband.  Nothing Gayle Benson donates to anything should have passed through her hands in the first place. Until we're talking about re-appropriating the Bensons' hoarded wealth for public redistribution, every "gift" from Gayle should be considered an insult.

Also I'm looking for information in this story about how the court plans to adjust its practices in order to get into compliance with this ruling and not finding any. 

For eight hours, Goodell listened attentively — sometimes interjecting questions — as defense attorneys and formerly incarcerated people spoke. In the day’s first session, Orleans Parish Chief Public Defender Derwyn Bunton explained the plethora of bail fees and court costs that defendants pay to help support the city's criminal justice system.

Federal judges recently declared that “user pays” system to be unconstitutional because the state judges who set fines and fees cannot be impartial when their own budget is at stake. After watching the bail hearings, Davis agreed.

“The judge didn’t let anybody off on no bail,” he said. “The judge has a conflict of interest, because he has to get the people in his office paid.”

For the present moment, it looks like it's business as usual over there. 

Okay so what is a "neutral hearing"?

This looks like a pretty good ruling in the "debtors's prison" lawsuit. (Basically, it says Orleans Parish operates one and that is bad and we shouldn't do that.)But it still isn't clear what the remedy is.

On Friday, Vance declared that "undisputed evidence" shows the 13 judges of Orleans Parish Criminal District Court have "a policy or practice of not inquiring into criminal defendants' ability to pay before those individuals are imprisoned for nonpayment of court debts."

She also declared that the judges have an "institutional conflict of interest" in making such poverty determinations themselves.

That's because the proceeds from fines and fees go directly to the court's Judicial Expense Fund, a kitty controlled by the judges that can be used for a broad range of judicial expenses. Fines and fees have contributed about $1 million a year to the court's coffers.

Vance ruled that the court's failure to "provide a neutral forum for determination of such persons' ability to pay is unconstitutional."

The decision appears to leave it up to the court to decide how to set up a mechanism for such decisions.

So a lot depends on how they decide to do that.