Chapter 1 and 2. Impact, From Punishment Without Crime, Alexandra… PDF

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Chapter 1 and 2. Impact, From Punishment Without Crime, Alexandra Natapoff, 2018 Summary: Chapter 1: Impact ● Myth: minor convictions and misdemeanors are not terrible for the people experiencing them. ○ Justifies speed and sloppiness of misdemeanor processing ○ People assigned least experienced prosecutors and public

defenders ○ People plead guilty to avoid going through this long and arduous

process ○ It even explains the Supreme Court's habit of withholding

constitutional rights from misdemeanor defendants. The Court has held that people who face less than six months' imprisonment have no right to a jury trial. No right to lawyer if they are not imprisoned for misdemeanor. ● HOWEVER: ○ People are jailed, fined, supervised, tracked, marked,

stigmatized ○ They can lose their job, child custody, drivers license, welfare

benefits, immigration status, and housing ○ Disqualified from loans and professional licenses, go into debt

and ruin their credit ○ EVEN IF THEY'RE NOT CONVICTED

Jail ● It is where you go when you are arrested, where you stay if you

can't make bail, where you will serve your sentence if convicted, and where you might end up if you can't pay your fine. ● 11 million admissions to 3,000 American jails every year, in

comparison to 1.5 million population in prison ● The average pretrial detainee can expect to be incarcerated for at

least a month whether or not he or she is ever convicted of anything. ● Pose health hazards! On average, nearly 1,000 people die in jails

every year, 30 percent within the first few days of incarceration. ● Longer sentences can lead to evictions, towed cars, loss of food

stamps, and other resources. They can also be further incarcerated if they did not pay child support V Probation ● Court ordered supervision ● Supervision fees, court costs, rehabilitation education fees, have to

have judge's approval to move (one individual had a mouse infestation). ● God forbid you lose some of your papers--conviction, jail time,

suspension of license. ● Probation officers can check the person or their home at any time. ● Probation usually requires periodic drug tests, visits to the probation

office, electronic monitoring, counseling, fines, or other conditions that can be difficult to meet, especially for low-income and workingclass probationers. ● Typical misdemeanor violation lasts 6 months to a year.

Fines, Fees, and New Debtors Prison

● Used to "to pay for the operations of the criminal process itself." so

the public defenders and probation officers. ● Fees can exceed fine ● Speed trapsV

Warrants ● Warrants for minor infractions -- very common. ● Create enormous cloud over people's heads and the records are not

entirely accurate. ● "law enforcement databases are insufficiently monitored and often

out of date…" -> prone to errors. Criminal Records and Employment ● Often companies will not hire individuals with anything on their record (misdemeanor, felony, etc.) ● These charges can last a long time and can prevent people from

either getting jobs are moving up in their job. ● 65 million Americans have a record--most for misdemeanors. ● Background checks are becoming more common (volunteering,

tenant screening, employment, etc.) and accessible (online), making finding jobs more difficult for those with records. ● seven states permit DNA collection from some misdemeanor

arrestees who have not been convicted. Losing public benefits ● "Any probation violation of any misdemeanor disqualifies an individual from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, food stamps, low-income housing, and Supplemental Security Income for the elderly and disabled."

● Drug misdemeanor convictions are particularly harsh for they

disqualify an individual from health insurance, student financial aid, and welfare (?) ● "The Council of State Governments maintains a database of the

collateral legal consequences of a criminal conviction; that database counts 8,958 different statutory provisions across the country that disqualify people with various misdemeanor convictions from professional occupations, housing opportunities, educational programs, and other benefits." Immigration ● Legal residents can lose their immigration status if they sustain a misdemeanor conviction. ● Many immigrants thus face the complicated consequences of a

misdemeanor, including civil detention and deportation, on their own and without legal advice since they do not have the right to a lawyer. Future Encounters ● People are more likely to get longer sentences or even charged with future misdemeanors, etc. if they've had a prior conviction. ● Because a prior misdemeanor turns a person into a "recidivist," a

sort of new rules and restrictions kick into place. ● Can undermine a person's relationships with friends and family,

colleagues, and places of worship. ● people's relationship to government; indeed, it c an taint their very

understanding of democratic society and their place in it. ● "merely being hauled into court and going through the judicial

process was often more punitive than any formal sentence the judge might impose." Chapter 2: Size

● There isn't a lot of information about misdemeanors because, "first,

misdemeanors have long been deemed unimportant by government officials, scholars, and the media and therefore have not gotten the attention and resources needed to keep track of them. Second, counting them is difficult." ● Some states may not even know how many courts they have

because cities have the power to create and abolish municipal courts at will. ● 13 million misdemeanor cases filed just in 2015… aka very common ● Many petty cases are diverted—put on hold for months while the

person is monitored and supervised—and then eventually dismissed, which means that people may endure the grueling misdemeanor process without sustaining a permanent conviction. ● Difficult to measure because not all states record the same

information or have the same definition for a misdemeanor. It's hard to analyze how the system has changed/not changed over time. ● Because the misdemeanor label is so broad and flexible, it does not

reveal how serious the underlying crime is. ● Generally speaking, the average criminal defendant is poorer, less

educated, less employed, and less healthy than the average American. V Questions: g. Why is the myth that misdemeanors are “not terrible” for the people that obtain them so pervasive in our society? Where do you think this myth originated? h. What do you think can be done to help solve/tackle the issue of the disproportionality of punishment regarding misdemeanors? i. Why do you believe that the government places such a low

importance on misdemeanors when they have been demonstrated toV affect individuals lives so greatly? o. Why is there such a disconnect between the felony data tracking system and the misdemeanor tracking system?...