Colorado City To Pay People Jailed Because They Could Not Afford Fines
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In Colorado Springs, people who told judges they could not afford to pay fines were sentenced to serve a day for every $50 they owed, with some sentenced to multiple terms for multiple offenses.
In a rare move, a Colorado city has agreed to pay dozens of people, most of them homeless, who were sent to jail because they could not afford to pay fines for minor offenses such as panhandling and jaywalking.
The $103,000 deal requires Colorado Springs to pay up to 66 people $125 for each day they spent behind bars. The city said municipal courts stopped imposing “pay or serve” sentences by the end of 2015 and the ordinances that allowed the practice have been changed. It also provided jail and court records of people who were jailed because they could not pay fines so they could be tracked down and paid.
The settlement comes as several other cities, including New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi, are facing federal lawsuits claiming authorities use jail or the threat of it to get people to pay court fees or fines. The US supreme court has ruled that people cannot be jailed if they do not have the money to pay.
The group behind those lawsuits, Washington-based Equal Justice Under Law, has also challenged cities for setting high bail amounts that keep defendants in jail as they await trial.
Photograph: Craig F Walker/Denver Post via Getty Images
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