Policing By Fleecing, in Ferguson and Beyond

Since then, with local budgets under strain and the explosion of the private prison industry, there has been a growing tendency to use the criminal justice system as a revenue-generating tool. As Sarah Stillman detailed in The New Yorker last year, private probation companies have become particularly aggressive in milking offenders with ever-mounting court fines.

"Now, across much of America, what starts as a simple speeding ticket can, if you're too poor to pay, mushroom into an insurmountable debt, padded by probation fees and, if you don't appear in court, by warrant fees," Stillman wrote in the aftermath of Ferguson. "What happens when people fall behind on their payments? Often, police show up at their doorsteps and take them to jail."

In Montgomery, Alabama, a nonprofit legal group called Equal Justice Under Law settled a case challenging the city's practice of allowing those paying fines to "work" them off with jail time instead -- $50 a day, plus another $25 daily if they agreed to perform janitorial services.

The group, along with ArchCity Defenders and the St. Louis University School of Law, sued Ferguson and a nearby municipality over their practices. The Justice report said Ferguson's ''prolonged detentions for those who cannot afford bond ... raise considerable due process and equal protection concerns."

Last month, it took the unusual step of filing a "statement of interest" in another lawsuit filed by Equal Justice Under Law against Clanton, Alabama, which sets fixed bail amounts for those charged with offenses, regardless of ability to pay.

"The criminal justice system should not work differently for the indigent and the wealthy," Acting Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

Except it does -- and not only in Ferguson.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.