Governor Whitmer signing Executive Order No. 2019-10. (Behind Gov. Whitmer, l to r): D.J. Hilson, Muskegon County Prosecutor and President, Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan; Stephan Currie, Executive Director, Michigan Association of Counties; State Rep. Lee Chatfield, Speaker of the House; Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II; Chief Justice Bridget McCormack; and Attorney General Dana Nessel.
By Melissa Walsh
While covering city beats with the Grosse Pointe News, I learned how vulnerable many can become to arrest and incarceration, especially those with low income. For instance, many of the police reports I read as part of my reporting detailed arrests of drivers pulled over after their license plate had been scanned by a public safety officer while driving along Lake Shore Drive. I recall the report of a young mother being pulled over for expired auto insurance. She had not been speeding. She hadn’t run a red light or made an illegal turn. The officer had simply discovered by running her plate that her insurance coverage had expired just days earlier. The officer arrested her. She had her two toddler-aged children in the car and told the officer she was on her way to drop them off at day care before heading to her job in Grosse Pointe. The officer allowed her to call her husband. When he arrived, he was arrested for the same offense — driving with expired auto insurance. A relative picked up the kids at the police station while the two were in custody. Of course, a law enforcement officer who discovers the infraction and releases the offender is potentially liable if they were to cause an accident following the release. I get that. Yet the couple I mentioned above did not demonstrate being a threat to society. And yet, for missing a premium payment, they were facing the financial quicksand of court fines and fees, in addition to missing work and the trauma of their children witnessing their arrest. I read about many arrests like this one, which, from the perspective of common sense, seem unreasonable. Is jail being used to protect society? Or are the lives of too many arrestees upset with job loss and financial hardship caused by a justice system that counters a smart approach to justice? The problem of the accelerated rates of arrest and incarceration over the past few decades, especially among low-income populations, caught the scrutiny of the ACLU, which launched its national Campaign for Smart Justice in 2018. With volunteers investigating the arrest and incarceration systems and statistics in each of the nation’s 50 states, the ACLU aims to examine the issues and promote criminal justice reform. In early 2019, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued Executive Order 2019-10, which created the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration, which went to work from April to November 2019 to investigate Michigan's justice system and determine its failures and best practices, including alternatives to plunging an individual into a whirlwind of court fines and fees (ie. tether and drug-test fees) and probation and incarceration that only the wealthy can avoid. Their findings were released on January 14, 2020.
From the Executive Summary of the Michigan Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration, January 2020.
0 Comments
|
Categories
All
Like what you've read? Become a supporter.
Thank you.
Archives
June 2023
|
RSS Feed