Unable to pay, you are fined for non-payment and perhaps even put back in jail, only to receive another invoice for your “room and board” in jail. Then to add insult to injury, when you can finally get a hearing and be released, you are handed a bill for your stay. Meanwhile, you lose your job and perhaps your apartment and car. If you are poor and can’t afford bail, then you sit in jail awaiting a hearing. But the process takes on new dimensions in the criminal justice system for those without money. We have the money to await trial at home. If you or I are arrested, we will make bail and return home. There has always been a high cost to being poor–renting instead of owning, payday loans instead of credit, and purchasing one meal at a time instead of the month’s groceries.
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