Posted on 06/13/2014 8:39:25 AM PDT by Rusty0604
PHILADELPHIA – A growing number of Americans are expressing outrage that a Pennsylvania mother of seven died in jail last weekend while serving a 48-hour sentence over unpaid, school truancy-related fines.
DiNinoEileen DiNino, 55, was found dead last Saturday in her jail cell. Authorities don’t know the cause of death yet, they have ruled out suspicious behavior.
DiNino was being penalized because several of her children routinely missed school. According to the Associated Press, “She had racked up $2,000 in fines, fees and court costs since 1999...
The fines related to school truancy are quite small – perhaps $20 – but it’s the court-related costs that are most expensive, sometimes reaching $150. Such costs add up quickly and make it nigh impossible for low-income parents to pay.
In the county where DiNino lived, roughly 110 parents of truant students are jailed every year.
Americans of all political stripes are denouncing the practice and likening it to the debtor’s prisons from the nation’s Colonial days.
(Excerpt) Read more at eagnews.org ...
Not factored in is: when is a truancy citation issued? Not likely it’s for each instance, so perhaps she received a citation after 5 or 10 individual acts of truancy.
It would help to know what reason(s) were behind her kids’ persistent truancy? In a family of 7 kids, no father, there are probably so many issues. Were any health-related? Certainly she was receiving medicaid for the kids if her income was low or non-existent?
I had one child who was sick continuously throughout his school years. In one school year, I think he was in the hospital once a month; another he was out for four straight months. His absences/tardies were generally but not always understood by the school staff. In the case of one teacher it took her own spending a night in the ER to begin to understand my kid’s plight. Nonetheless, my other kids managed to get to school on time, even if we’d been up all night @ the ER. So I’m not sure if any of the “truancies” were justified. Way too much information missing in the story.
That is partly why I said “truant (whatever that means)” because they do not give the information.
Lol good story. Will have to remember that when buying a future Mercedes ( not likely ) it will entail court costs.
Too bad your case wasn’t adjudicated by a circuit judge driving a Mercedes or BMW. After all, we know how 1%-ers take care of each other - if you don’t mind my friendly capitalistic jibe.
Your not going to die in jail in two days unless you were already dying from the inside.
They did rule out foul play.
I have no problem with trying to make parents responsible for their children.
At the point they feel it is impossible and that they child is Satan, they are legally free to turn that child over to the state if it was really that bad.
We don’t lack education or books, we lack parenting in our country.
If you want to collect on a debt, have the debtor willingly and knowingly sign for securing the debt with collateral. If loaning is otherwise too risky, don’t do it.
The new trend of slavery in the U.S.A. has gone too far.
Look at the costs of trying to implement debtors’ prisons and taking debts with no agreed collateral. Many have completely honest cases (no money or assets beyond exemptions) but are laying in wait with activist lawyers for attempts at persecution (illnesses, disabilities, widows, children, etc.).
How can public $ervant$ and their mo$t $upporting, government-linked con$tituent$ be so vain as to continue cruising so swiftly toward default? Are they simply inclined toward being founts of money to the folks they attack?
That’s much like a loan in a sense, isn’t it. The political/regulator folks get a thrill out of torturing and robbing someone only to pay many times more to the victim later on, one way or another. Are the robber-socialists knowingly going through that process, or are they only culpable?
;-D
The amount is irrelevant. Either just laws are enforceable, or they are a farce.
A wise policy, but that is irrelevant to the discussion.
Besides, lenders and borrowers should be able to come to ANY terms agreeable to both, when the penalties are clearly spelled out in the contract. I don't care if it's turning over your first born child if you breach.
That breaches of contracts today has become so routine and accepted is the real tragedy here.
Dead for $20....?
You just keep standing on principle......
I don't doubt that there are a few honest cases of hardship, but opening that Pandora's box paves the way for unbridled abuse, and you and I know it too well. If leniency is extended to one party, it will be demanded across the board.
I know that in a sane society, such reasonable exceptions could be feasible, but we are in a politically correct era, where that no longer works.
But, can I steal $20 from you? I know their will be no penalty, so why not?
Do you champion the government breaking into checking and savings account? Seizing cars and other assets?
If someone refuses to pay, after prolonged, systematic, long-suffering attempts to collect properly owed debt, force must eventually be used. Maybe it's you going after the debtor with a gun, maybe it's a government law enforcement arm. But to ignore this prosecution makes a farce of the law. It's no law at all. And I'm sure you're not an anarchist, at least when it's your property that's involved.
Remind me....How many people are in jail for stealing $20?
Should there be no penalty for stealing $20?
So justice isn’t blind? In some other countries in Europe, traffic fines are accessed according to ability to pay. Some liberals a while back were pushing for that here. So they are saying the severity of the infraction depends on the ability to pay the fine?
I guess that is what Holder wants done with other crimes; punishment depends on what race you are.
Call and send letter; report to credit bureau. The debt is voluntary action in that case, unlike this case where the fine is for something the parent didn’t do.
“In some other countries in Europe, traffic fines are accessed according to ability to pay. Some liberals a while back were pushing for that here.”
A billionaire in Finland paid the highest speeding fine ever. http://autos.aol.com/article/highest-speeding-fines/
I’d hire a driver and never get behind the wheel in Finland again.
I became a single mom when my son was a teenager. I dropped him and the neighbor off at school every AM. I found out that they did not enter school but found a way home and played games all day while I was at work. So I went home and caught them.
They did it again a few times (that I know of)even though they were disciplined and after that I just called a truancy officer to come to the house. I could not control everything he did; his dad lived hundreds of miles away and I had to work everyday. I did the best I could do under the circumstances.
BTW, he makes more money now than anyone else in the family even though he always hated school.
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