Report claims Ohio is jailing people that can't pay their court fines.
Cleaveland, Ohio -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio has called on the Ohio Supreme Court to end “debtors’ prisons,” where indigent people are unlawfully jailed because they cannot pay court fines.
On Thursday, the ACLU released the results of its investigation "The Outskirts of Hope" which found seven courts across Ohio, including Parma Municipal Court, had disregarded the rights of indigent defendants, said Mike Brickner, director of communications and public policy for ACLU of Ohio.
The organization said the courts were not holding the required hearings to determine whether a person was indigent and that people who are indigent cannot legally be jailed for failure to pay their fines.
Brickner said the results of the ACLU study were shared with Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who has promised to meet with the group to discuss the findings.
The ACLU investigation was conducted in 2012 and early this year.
The recent investigation grew out of a report that the national ACLU issued in 2010. It was called “In for a Penny,” and profiled five states including Ohio.
Jocelyn Rosnick, a policy researcher and postgraduate legal fellow with the ACLU of Ohio, said the national report triggered complaints to the Ohio branch about abuses here, most notably in Huron County.
According to ACLU of Ohio statistics, between May and October of 2012, a total of 1,171 people were booked into the Huron County Jail. Of those, 259, or 22.12 percent, were for failure to pay fines.
In a letter to the judges of Parma Municipal Court, the ACLU said that “defendants have repeatedly been committed to jail in a process that flouts the requirements of the (Ohio) statute and the Constitutions.”
The letter said that based on the court’s docket and data released through public-records requests “reveal that debtor’s prisons practices in Parma are widespread.”
The letter said that between July 15 and August 31 last year “at least 45 people served time in the Parma Detention Center for failure to pay fines and costs.”
Read the full report by clicking on the link below:
http://www.acluohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/TheOutskirtsOfHope2013_04.pdf