Event

Free and open to the public / Food provided

OVER SEVEN MILLION AMERICANS are either incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, with their criminal records often following them for life and affecting access to higher education, jobs, and housing. Court-ordered monetary sanctions that compel criminal defendants to pay fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution further inhibit their ability to reenter society. Sociologist ALEXES HARRIS presents findings from her book, A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as  Punishment for the Poor, which draws from extensive sentencing data, legal documents, observations of court hearings, and interviews with defendants, judges, prosecutors, and other court officials. Highlighting variations in how monetary sanctions are imposed, she shows how judges and court clerks hold a considerable degree of discretion in sentencing and rely on individual values—such as personal responsibility, meritocracy, and paternalism—to determine how much and when offenders should pay. Harris finds that fiscal sentences, imposed disproportionately on low-income minorities, help create a permanent economic underclass of those too poor to make make regular payments towards this pernicious debt. Finally, Harris proposes ways to end a two-tiered legal system that imposes additional burdens on already-marginalized groups.

Sponsored by the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy