Alabama Settlement Could Be Model For Handling Poor Defendants In Ferguson, Mo.
There may be a model for court reform in Ferguson, Mo., in a legal settlement that happened quietly this week in Alabama.The city of Montgomery agreed to new polices to avoid jailing people who say...
View ArticleCan't Pay Your Fines? Your License Could Be Taken
Drive drunk, drive recklessly, and the state can suspend your driver's license. But many police and motor vehicle administrators worry about a recent trend: A large number of suspensions are for...
View ArticleHow Driver's License Suspensions Unfairly Target The Poor
This is the second of two stories. Read the first story here.If you get caught drinking and driving in Wisconsin, and it's your first offense, you lose your license for nine months. For a hit-and-run,...
View ArticleMassachusetts Will Limit Practice Of Restraint And Seclusion In Schools
Massachusetts is one of a growing number of states that are putting new restrictions on the practice of restraining and secluding public school students.The techniques — which have been blamed for...
View ArticleStudy Finds Court Fees Also Punish The Families Of Those Who Owe
A new report on the growth of court fines and fees that are charged to often-impoverished offenders is focusing on another group that pays: their families.Titled "When All Else Fails, Fining the...
View ArticleCivil Rights Attorneys Sue Ferguson Over 'Debtors Prisons'
In a new challenge to police practices in Ferguson, Mo., a group of civil rights lawyers is suing the city over the way people are jailed when they fail to pay fines for traffic tickets and other minor...
View ArticleJail Time For Unpaid Court Fines And Fees Can Create Cycle Of Poverty
On a night last week when the temperature dropped to 17 degrees, Edward Brown, who's 62 and homeless, slept at the bus stop in front of the Jennings, Mo., city hall in St. Louis County."It was cold,...
View ArticleFrom Solitary To The Streets: Released Inmates Get Little Help
In prison, Brian Nelson lived in solitary confinement. That meant 23 hours a day in a small cell. No human contact, except with guards — for 12 years straight.Then, his prison sentence for murder was...
View ArticleComing Home Straight From Solitary Damages Inmates And Their Families
The thing Sara Garcia remembers from the day her son, Mark, got out of prison was the hug — the very, very awkward hug. He had just turned 21 and for the past two and a half years, he'd been in...
View ArticleShe Owes Her Activism To A Brave Mom, The ADA And Chocolate Cake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvoj-ku8zk0 To Haben Girma's grandmother, back in East Africa, it "seemed like magic." Her granddaughter, born deaf and blind, is a graduate of Harvard Law School and...
View ArticleWhite House Gathers Lawmakers And Judges To Solve Steep Court Fees
Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: Court fines for a minor infraction, like a traffic ticket or jaywalking, can cost hundreds of dollars. For those who can't come up with the...
View ArticleDoubling Up Prisoners In 'Solitary' Creates Deadly Consequences
This seems like a contradiction: Put a dangerous prison inmate into solitary confinement, and then give him a cellmate. An investigation by NPR and The Marshall Project, a news organization that...
View ArticleColorado Springs Will Stop Jailing People Too Poor To Pay Court Fines
Debtors' prisons have long been illegal in the United States. But many courts across the country still send people to jail when they can't pay their court fines. Last year, the Justice Department...
View ArticleCourt Fines And Fees Almost Delay Homecoming For Wrongly Convicted Michigan Man
Davontae Sanford was only 14 years old when he was arrested for a string of murders in Michigan. But after almost nine years in prison, his conviction was overturned when a state investigation found...
View ArticleVideos Make Everyone A Witness To Police Shootings
It may seem like there are a lot more cases of people being shot and killed by police.Just this week, two African-American men were shot by police: Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in...
View ArticleBombing Suspect Spent Time In Afghanistan And Had Money Trouble
Here's what we know about Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in weekend bombings in New York and New Jersey, who was taken into custody on Monday after a shootout with police and charged with five counts...
View ArticleInside Lewisburg Prison: A Choice Between A Violent Cellmate Or Shackles
On Feb. 3, 2011, corrections officers at the Lewisburg federal penitentiary in central Pennsylvania arrived outside Sebastian Richardson's cell door. With them was a man looking agitated, rocking back...
View Article37 Civil Rights Groups Seek Investigation Into 'Torture' At Lewisburg Prison
In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, 37 civil rights, human rights and church groups on Monday asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate "harrowing allegations of abuse and...
View ArticleNational Panel Advises Judges On People Who Can't Pay Court Fees
When NPR in 2014 ran a series about how people around the country end up in debtors' prisons when they don't have the money to pay court fines and fees — even on minor infractions like traffic tickets...
View ArticleNick Dupree Fought To Live 'Like Anyone Else'
Disability rights activist Nick Dupree died last weekend. Tomorrow would have been his 35th birthday. Back in 2003, he told NPR : "I want a life. I just want a life. Like anyone else. Just like your...
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