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.
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.