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	For-Profit Justice means Taxing the Poor by Chris Albin-Lackey Human Rights Watch, agencies USA   When for-profit companies make money off the criminal justice system through privatization of prisons, it often triggers serious public debate. But there has been precious little scrutiny of local governments that use courts to make money for themselves. We should all be paying closer attention, because that kind of for-profit justice often means shifting public costs onto a community’s poorest members and creating perverse incentives for courts to ratchet up the pain.   From Ferguson to the suburbs of Atlanta, some municipalities and counties have turned their courts into veritable cash cows. They deploy a crushing array of fines, court costs, and other fees to harvest revenues from minor offenders that these communities cannot or do not want to raise through taxation. This is as dangerous and abusive as it is politically tempting.   Many public officials have embraced the idea that minor offenders should pay at least part of whatever it costs to bring them to book. But many courts now levy fees that are enormous in comparison to the punishments actually imposed for an offense. A resident of Montgomery, Alabama who commits a simple noise violation faces only a $20 fine—but also a whopping $257 in court costs and user fees should they seek to have their day in court. It’s a very short slide downhill from asking the courts to recover some of their costs to asking them to turn a profit and help fill up the municipal treasury.   Unfortunately, these practices are widespread. In the wake of Michael Brown’s shooting, investigations have thrown up evidence that municipal courts across the St. Louis metro area seem to prey on poor, mostly black people charged with relatively trivial offenses. Many are guilty only of so-called “crimes of poverty”—like a person who fails to renew their auto insurance or fix a broken taillight because they simply can’t afford it.   People leave court with steep new debts that make it even harder to meet the original obligations. Often, the money courts collect from minor offenders far exceeds operating costs and spills over to fund other services.   While there are signs that long-overdue reforms may be coming to Ferguson, there are courts across the U.S. that seem bent on harvesting profits from the poor. The problem of revenue-driven courts has been not so much hidden as widely ignored.   At Human Rights Watch, our research has shown how courts can wind up mired in abusive practices when they are being pushed to earn more money. Local courts across several states, such as Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, have turned to for-profit companies that provide probation supervision in misdemeanor cases. Many of the courts that hire these companies are not looking for a probation service so much as a debt collector—offenders are frequently put on probation purely because they need time to pay all of what they owe to the court.   Probation companies operate on what they call an “offender-funded” model, charging fees directly to the offenders they supervise. Those fees can add up into vast sums over time, and offenders who fail to pay their probation company its due can be arrested. Sometimes, these companies behave more like abusive debt collectors than probation officers. And perversely, the way fees are structured, poorer people actually wind up paying more because they need more time on probation to pay what they owe.   The Alabama town of Harpersville provides a useful cautionary tale. The town hired a for-profit company called Judicial Correction Services (JCS) to act as a probation service for its municipal court. The town relied on the court to generate some $300,000 of the town’s annual budget through fines and court costs. Some offenders paid more in fees to JCS than they owed the court to begin with, and many wound up behind bars for falling behind.   This story ended badly for everyone involved. Offenders straining under the yoke of these costs sued the town, and a state judge condemned the whole operation as a “judicially sanctioned extortion racket." Harpersville wound up shutting down its municipal court entirely and was left scrambling to plug a gaping hole in its budget. In the end, the town did what it probably should have done in the first place—it passed a 1 percentage point increase in local property taxes to fund basic services the old-fashioned way. But many other towns in Alabama and other states are still doing exactly the same thing.   Our courts should be in the business of doing justice, not making money off the backs of the poor. That statement may have the ring of an uncontroversial platitude, but in fact it’s a principle too many U.S. local governments have turned their backs on.   * Chris Albin-Lackey is a senior business and human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.   http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/01/07/profit-justice-means-taxing-poor http://www.aclu.org/smart-justice-fair-justice http://www.ips-dc.org/the-poor-get-prison-the-alarming-spread-of-the-criminalization-of-poverty/ http://ourfuture.org/20140512/9-stories-of-injustice-from-matt-taibbis-new-book-the-divide Visit the related web page
	Freedom of expression is a right at the heart of healthy, functioning societies by Reuters, AFP, UN News, agencies France   11 Jan 2015   "Live together, free, equal and in solidarity".   Between 1.5 to 2 million people took to the streets of Paris. An estimated 3.7 million took to the streets across the whole country, in a nationwide of solidarity.   Parisiens of all ages, religions and nationalities turned out en masse not only to show their respect for the victims of the recent terrorist attacks, but their support for the values of the French Republic: “liberté, égalité, fraternité” – freedom of speech and freedom of the press.   “On est tous Charlie” (We are all Charlie), they chanted, waving French flags, singing La Marseillaise, brandishing pens, pencils, placards and banners in French, English and Arabic.   Presidents, prime ministers, statesmen and women took buses from the Elysée palace to join the march from Place de la République to Place de la Nation, two of Paris’s best-known squares.   Leaders of all the religions marched behind a banner bearing the slogan “We are Charlie”.   “We are united – Muslims, Catholics, Jews, we want to live peacefully together,” one woman told reporters.   The head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, participated in the historic march for freedom and solidarity in Paris, held in the wake of the deadly terrorist assault on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, and after three days of subsequent attacks that killed 17 people in the country.   “Beyond expressions of sympathy and solidarity, we must act. For UNESCO, this means, first, to continue supporting and advancing freedom of expression and of the press, fighting for the safety of journalists and against impunity.”   “We must bolster all our work in education, in promoting dialogue and understanding between cultures and religions”.   “As sectarian violence spreads through hate speech, through lies and the manipulation of religion, we must respond by fostering tools that enable young people to resist such manipulations, and this brings us back to the founding principle of UNESCO – since wars begin in the minds of men and women, we must build the defenses of peace in the minds of men and women.”   The Director-General reiterated the commitment of UNESCO in promoting freedom of expression and defending a free, pluralistic and independent media. On behalf of the Organization, she expressed deep concern at such brutal sectarian violence, calling for unity and solidarity in response.   Ms. Bokova said terrorists are seeking to divide society, to set communities against each other, “and we must prevent this at all cost. This is the significance of this march, and the meaning of my participation, on behalf of the United Nations, guided by this spirit of solidarity."   10 Jan 2015   More than 700,000 people took to streets across France in tribute to the 17 people killed in three days of violence by Islamist extremists, the interior minister said.   From Nice and Marseilles in the south to Besancon in the east and Lille in the north, people poured onto the streets to express their solidarity following Wednesday"s attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead.   The massacre was followed by the fatal shooting of a police officer on Thursday and the murder of four hostages during a siege at a supermarket on Friday.   "700,000 people have marched" in cities around France, Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters on the eve of a huge Paris rally planned.   In the southern city of Toulouse, police said about 80,000 people took part in a march.   "Live together, free, equal and in solidarity," read the banner behind which at least 30,000 people also marched in the western city of Nantes. In Marseille, 45,000 people expressed similar sentiments with a rally banner that said "For democracy, equality, freedom, let"s fight fascism".   In Pau, a further 30,000 to 40,000 people staged a silent march with school pupils leading the way. In Besancon, another 20,000 took to the streets, an AFP correspondent said, while in northern Orleans around 22,000 rallied.   In Nice, 23,000 demonstrators were counted, in a demonstration which snaked for a kilometre along the famous seafront Promenade des Anglais, ending at the war memorial where a wreath was laid in the presence of representatives of different faiths.   Outside France, several thousand people, including many Muslims, rallied in Milan with many carrying signs that said "I am Charlie" or "Not In My Name".   The rallies came ahead of a march expected to draw over a million people in Paris on Sunday.   8 Jan 2015   People have gathered in cities across France to pay tribute to 12 people killed in an attack against the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo.   French officials said 11 other people were injured, when two masked men stormed the central Paris offices of the magazine on Wednesday.   Two police officers and ten journalists are thought to have been killed.   Charlie Hebdo (Charlie Weekly) is renowned for courting controversy with satirical attacks on political and religious leaders and has published numerous cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammed.   Some Parisians expressed fears about the effect of the attack on community relations in France. The attack, comes amid what a number of commentators have identified as rising xenophobia in Europe, with thousands of protesters in several German cities rallying earlier this week against Muslim immigration.   France"s five-million-strong Muslim population is Europe"s largest.   "I am extremely angry. These are criminals, barbarians. They have sold their soul to hell. This is not freedom. This is not Islam and I hope the French will come out united at the end of this," said Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of the Drancy mosque in the northern Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis.   Other cities across Europe and around the world were also holding rallies to pay tribute to the dead.   United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the attack. “I am appalled and deeply shocked by the attack against Charlie Hebdo in Paris this morning”. “This act of violence can in no way be justified. This is an attack against freedom of expression and freedom of the press - the two pillars of democracy.”   According to media reports, masked gunmen opened fire with assault rifles in the office of Charlie Hebdo in central Paris, killing four of the magazine"s cartoonists and its editor.   The Secretary-General stressed his solidarity with the Government and people of France. “This horrific attack is meant to divide. We must not fall into that trap,” he said. “This is a moment for solidarity. Around the world, we must stand strong for freedom of expression and tolerance and stand against forces of division and hate.”   UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra"ad Al Hussein said, “If this attack is allowed to feed discrimination and prejudice, it will be playing straight into the hands of extremists whose clear aim is to divide religions and societies. With xenophobia and anti-migrant sentiments already on the rise in Europe, I am very concerned that this awful, calculated act will be exploited by extremists of all sorts.”   He stressed that freedom of expression and opinion are cornerstones of any democratic society and said those trying to divide communities on grounds of religion, ethnicity or any other reason must not be allowed to succeed.   Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said she was horrified by the “attack against the media and against freedom of expression.”   “The international community cannot let extremists sow terror and prevent the free flow of opinions and ideas.”   Mr. Bokova paid homage to the 12 victims of the “savage attack,” including four renowned cartoonists, Georges Wolinski, Jean Cabut (Cabu), Bernard Verlhac (Tignous) and Stephane Charbonnier (Charb).   “Never before has one media outlet been so deliberately targeted and its staff decimated in an act of such extreme violence,” the Director-General said.   “Today’s unprecedented and horrifying attack is a tragic reminder to us all that the right to freedom of expression is fragile, and that those who defend it may pay the ultimate price for doing so.”   “At the same time, the spontaneous demonstrations that this appalling crime has provoked across France and around the world - the outpouring of sorrow and anger expressed by citizens from all faiths - also reveal that freedom of expression is a right that is cherished, and understood by all as being at the heart of healthy, functioning societies,” Ms. Bokova said.   * The hashtags #CharlieHebdo and #JeSuisCharlie continue to trend on Twitter.   http://www.france24.com/en/20150108-france-media-statement-solidarity-charlie-hebdo-press-freedom/ http://europeanjournalists.org/blog/2015/01/07/charlie-hebdo-shooting-a-barbaric-act-against-media-freedom/ http://www.humanrightseurope.org/2015/01/france-thorbjorn-jagland-and-anne-brasseur-condemn-charlie-hebdo-terrorist-attack/ http://dartcenter.org/content/12-killed-in-terror-attack-at-paris-newspaper#.VLBtaMmpVJM http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49741#.VK3CR8mpVJM http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/07/guardian-view-charlie-hebdo-guns-trained-free-speech http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/opinion/nicholas-kristof-lessons-from-the-charlie-hebdo-shooting-in-paris.html http://www.cfr.org/france/media-conference-call-farah-pandith-violent-extremism/p35944 http://www.unaoc.org/wp-content/uploads/Statement-of-Multi-Religious-Action-English-13-December.pdf http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/01/13/dispatches-after-charlie-hebdo-tackling-intolerance-against-jews-and-muslims http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/freedom-of-expression/press-freedom/unesco-condemns-killing-of-journalists/ http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/int-day-to-end-impunity/international-day-to-end-impunity-2014/ http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/FreedomOpinion/Pages/FeatureStories.aspx http://www.fidh.org/International-Federation-for-Human-Rights/united-nations/17087-the-human-rights-council-should-reaffirm-international-consensus-on   * See 2015 report by UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief - Preventing Violence in the Name of Religion: A/HRC/28/66   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/FreedomReligion/Pages/Issues.aspx Visit the related web page
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