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 ...
I say we put the truant students in jail; but if we must jail parents, then let us jail the FATHERS not the mothers. If the fathers are not in the picture, then double the jail sentence. In the teen years, especially with sons, it is difficult for mothers to control rebellious teens, especially if they are raising their children alone.
I’ve always wondered, is it “redding” or “reeding”?
To Gen Blather,
Don’t want you to think that my previous post to you was in any way a disagreement with your post. I was agreeing with you that the Leviathan vampire is the government and in this case the court costs.
The judge should also have had the option ( which maybe the law in Pa. didn’t allow him ) to shame the mother by having her walk the streets with clapboards proclaiming her as a truancy mom.
“Don’t want you to think that my previous post to you was in any way a disagreement with your post.”
Well, thank you. I didn’t take it as disagreement, just a bit more info. I have been Freeper-flamed and I look back at the post they’re referring to and wonder how on Earth they interpreted it to get so angry. Some people, like thieves who believe everybody is a thief, see exactly what they expect to see and nothing more or less. Have a great day.
Oh, and more importantly, I see disagreement differently than others. I read it carefully to see how I can better present my ideas. Frequently, somebody has misread something because I took a shortcut. And, I have actually changed my opinion when a knowledgeable Freeper presents a cogent argument I’d never considered.
The daily cost of having her in jail is probably higher then her debt..
So, the debt should be ignored completely?
As others have posted, there are other methods.
Fining for truancy is stupid anyway.
All very true. With 7 kids, its almost a guarantee that she gets EIC...I’m no tax lawyer, but I bet EIC cannot be intercepted like the rest of a tax refund can.
I know; I’m just implying that when gov’t agencies bring in revenue by accessing fines and fees it gives them more incentive to do so.
Thanks for your kind reply, General, and for understanding my post as an amplification of your words of wisdom.
I do think my suggestions of taking her truancy fines out of her welfare checks and/or shaming her with truancy-mom clapboards as far better options than jailing her. But then that would be just too commonsensical, and she’d still be alive.
This is a reason to declare her kids out of control?
I won't even get into the idea of punishing people to force them to send their kids to those kiddy prisons they call "schools". For the record, BAD IDEA.
Lot of people cannot control their own spawn because of government interference and rules.
““Avenues of debt collection” recognize this binary reality: either the fine is collected, or it is not. Are you saying that the state will rely on pestering a party into possibly paying, but if they don’t, then they’ll just give up?”
Yes, certainly. That’s the basic situation that everyone in this country except for the government is in, and we deal with it just fine. We attempt to collect the debt (while our debt collection practices are severely limited by law), and if we cannot collect it, we note that to the credit agencies in hopes that sometime in the future, when the person wants to make a transaction that requires credit, they will have to pay the debt.
If this system doesn’t suffice for the government, then why not? What makes them so special that they cannot operate under the same rules as the rest of us?
States following the Revolution began to impose restrictions on imprisonment for debt, as to duration, the amounts owed that would subject a debtor to imprisonment, etc. Eventually New York abolished debtors prisons altogether in 1831, and in 1833 the Federal government abolished imprisonment for debts being ordered by Federal courts. All the other states, following the lead of New York and the Federal government, abolished debtors prisons soon thereafter.
The interesting thing about court costs is they shouldn’t be levied at all. Origionally there was a judge who rode from town to town in a circuit. He was called the circuit judge. His pay for rendering his judgments was the assessed court cost. Twenty dollars was the usual amount and in the circuit court here it is still the amount. I asked once where those fines went and nobody knew. Finally, a bailiff told me he thought they went into a general fund. But since the circuit judge is now an employee with benefits the court costs make no sense as they don’t begin to cover the cost of his benefits and the benefits of the other employees and the overhead. They are a relic of another time, like our appendix.
My understanding is it’s up to the discretion of the judge whether they are assessed or not. I was in traffic court and the judge raised an eyebrow when he heard I was driving a Mercedes. Not only did I get the fine but the court costs. But the next guy who had a VW only got the fine.
What does a private party do when the costs of collecting a debt exceed the debt?
An alternative view: state taxpayers pony up thousands of dollars a year to educate children. That translates to this: this woman was wasting other peoples’ money plus she was assuring the same taxpayers would be paying her kids’ welfare or their arrest, prosecution and incarceration. I’m sorry she died, but I have a unique view: for five years I was part of the “juvenile justice” scam as a probation officer for serious offenders. 100% of the rapists, robbers, burglars and murderers I dealt with had a first referral for truancy in elementary school. For 21 years I was a public school administrator. Our district had a cooperative agreement with the county prosecutor for a program like the one in the story. It was a resounding success. Attendance rose, grade point averages rose, graduation rates rose; daytime burglaries, assaults, car thefts and shoplifting dropped drastically. School discipline problems did not rise. Again, I’m sorry she died but she isn’t a saint or a victim. All she had to do was get her kids up and on the bus. That isn’t rocket science. The school would have fed them two meals and dropped them off in the afternoon so she would be free to do whatever the hell it was she did during the day. As for the “she’s poor” argument: there’s a slight risk I’m wrong but no risk I’m being rash here - she was getting taxpayer money every month for each kid, food stamps, WIC and maybe subsidized housing.
Jail for missing a $20 fine?
You keep rationalizing for the regime....it’ll help your credibility.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.