by Diane Mierzwik.
LeRoy has been meeting with me every Tuesday for the last two months. We read out loud together to increase his reading fluency as part of the program’s implementation of new Evidence-Based Reading Instruction. We stop often so I can explain things like how when there is a period at the end of the sentence, he should pause, and other “rules” of reading that feel very insignificant considering the challenges LeRoy faces.
I console myself with the belief that LeRoy has a family he is living with while he gets back on his feet. After all, he tells me each Tuesday that he practiced reading to his daughter since the last time we met, and he is always dressed in clean jeans, spotless tennis shoes and a brand new jacket, not like Charles, the other student I meet with who comes on Tuesdays disheveled and dirty.
Then one day at break, while talking to the teacher about LeRoy and Charles’s progress, I tell her LeRoy is reading to his daughter. She tries to contain her jubilance at how naïve I still am after so many years of working in our program.
“LeRoy is homeless. His daughter lives in Phoenix.” Then, as if to console me, she adds, “Maybe he’s reading to her over the phone.”
“He has a phone?” I ask ruefully.
“A really nice Iphone which he is constantly trying to charge during class, but he has yet to even try to make a payment on the fines and restitution he still owes the state, and I doubt he pays child support for his daughter.”
I think about his nice clothes, looking at my scuffed loafers and fingering the three year old cell phone in my pocket, and feel duped.
I wonder how rehabilitation gets LeRoy to pay what he owes the victim of his crime, the state, and his daughter’s mother instead buying new sneakers, snazzy jackets and a cell phone. I imagine that our weekly lesson on reading fluency is probably as meaningful to LeRoy as being able to sit on one’s hind legs is to elephants in a circus.
When my son was seven years old, he began to earn an allowance. I read all the books and understood that I needed to make it clear that part of his allowance was to go into “savings,” part of it was to return to the household to contribute to expenses like paying “taxes,” and part of it he could spend. He decided he wanted a motorcycle. We posted a chart on the refrigerator which showed how his savings was growing and how close he was to having enough money to buy a motorcycle. Eventually he began to hand over part of his spending money, forgoing buying smaller toys and candy, and to begin to haggle with me about exactly how much “taxes” he should have to pay so he could increase his savings for the motorcycle. He even took to scavenging through the car ashtrays and beneath the furniture cushions for loose change.
Budgeting his money and how I budgeted my money became a part of most of our interactions for the next several months as he learned what it meant to have money and control it.
When he got sick and I took him to the doctor’s, the conversation continued. I explained that because of my job, we have health insurance, but each visit to the doctor costs $15 for the copay.
“Then why do we have insurance if we still have to pay?” he asked.
“Because there may be a time when the medical bills are so high, we need insurance to pay for it.”
“Has there been a time like that?”
I remembered when he was born and how the itemized bill showed that changing the pads beneath me had cost $250 a night and the aspirin I took cost $45. I thought about when he was three and hit his head. At the emergency room he was put in an MRI machine and we spent the night so the nurses could wake him up intermittently to be sure he didn’t fall into a coma. I didn’t even bother to look at that bill, happy that insurance was covering it, but wondered later how much the hot wheel cars used to awaken him cost.
“Yes, a few.”
He nodded. “But I don’t have to pay for this because I’m a kid?”
As we stood at the counter to sign in and pay our copay, I wondered, should I make him pay a fair share? His “taxes” didn’t pay for health insurance. I contemplated how responsible he should be for his health costs and decided that as his guardian, I should pay for it, even though in the adult world, the one I was trying to teach him about, the only other time someone else pays for health care is if you are in prison or so poor you simply can’t pay. Ironically, then I’m paying too.
Luann Laubscher explains that “Inmates lose most of their rights as soon as they enter their jail cell, but under state law the one right they still have is access to health care.” She further explains that
[T]he jail medical plan must be designed to protect the health and welfare of the inmates and to avoid the spread of contagious diseases, provide for the medical supervision of inmates and for emergency medical care, to the extent necessary for inmates’ health and welfare and provide for the detection, the examination and the treatment of inmates who have tuberculosis or sexually transmitted diseases.
The jail medical plan must also include health screening of inmates when they enter the jail, routine medical care, management of chronic illnesses or communicable diseases, dispensing and control of medications, management of emergency medical problems that include dental care, chemical dependency and pregnancy, confidentiality of medical records and privacy during medical examinations and conferences with qualified personnel.
My health insurance covers most of those things too, with steep co-pays. Recently, I paid over two hundred dollars for my eye appointment for the lighter lens the doctor suggest to avoid the headaches I’d been having. When I left the optometrist and went to pick up my allergy prescriptions, because there are no generics offered and my health insurance doesn’t believe I need the medicine though my doctor does, I had to pay over eighty dollars, which I pay monthly. Of course, I don’t need to be treated for sexually transmitted diseases or any chronic or communicable diseases. If I were in prison, all these things would be paid for, at taxpayers’ expense.
The student explains to me that he isn’t actually a drug addict. He’s not in our class in the county jail because he has a problem, at least not with drugs.
“I needed some dental work.” He opens his mouth as if I’m supposed to peer inside to see the area needing work, even pointing. When he realizes I am not going to lean forward to inspect his mouth, he closes it and continues. “It hurt so bad I couldn’t sleep. As soon as I got here, they pulled it for me and now I’m waiting for my bridge. It should all be done before the class ends, then I’m good to go.”
I think about my friend who recently lost her full-time job and health insurance. Though she is working part-time and able to get by, she has been unable to pay the $1200 a month premium to keep her health insurance. Recently she had to have a tooth pulled. She also opened her mouth and pointed then explained, “Now I have hole there but it’s okay. I just chew on the other side.”
I thought about making a joke about not being able to eat as much and losing weight, but then thought it would be in bad taste, given the tragic situation; my friend, who is in her forties and has worked her whole life, never before relying on public assistance, is now unable to afford to take care of her teeth. I felt helpless.
When the student starts talking again, I am reminded he’s there. “They better get it done soon. I only have four more weeks of this class. Then I’m out again.”
Though our program does serve students who claim they were once affluent, even they admit that getting involved in crime and drugs took all that away.
Larry Hales explains, “Official data on the poverty of individuals who commit crimes are difficult to come by, yet it is easy to infer since the Bureau of Justice reports that depressed urban areas account for the highest percentage of crimes and arrests.” Hales cites “deindustrialization, white flight, underfunded schools, the dismantling of welfare and a general decline in social services” as the causes for the depressed areas while reminding readers the cost to taxpayers to increase policing of these areas.
*****
After five years of listening to student stories I now filter out the claims of innocence and add the understated details of their cause for incarceration. When a student tells me he got his second strike because he and his girlfriend got in a fight, he took the car, she called the police and reported it stolen, and he got charged with Grand Theft Auto, I actually believe him. I happen to be a rather vindictive woman and could see myself doing the very same thing to him.
“What did you learn?”
“Not to fight with my girlfriend then take her car.”
I nod and I repeat, “Her car.”
*****
The use of prisons to incarcerate the poor is nothing new. When imprisonment was institutionalised in America in the mid-19th century, it was primarily a method of controlling deviant and dependent population groups, or the poor.
Elliot Currie makes this point, “Short of major wars, mass incarceration has been the most thoroughly implemented government social program of our time” (21).
Our classrooms are located in the worst neighborhoods. No one wants to be neighbors with a parole office. Criminals, many of them indigent and/or drug addicts, frequent the space, scaring off customers for legitimate businesses, not to mention raising the risk of robberies or burglaries. But the worst area I visit is in downtown Los Angeles, in the middle of an industrial area next to the train tracks.
When I visit the site, I prepare myself for navigating the diesel truck traffic, the men selling fruit at every stop sign, and the urges to lock my doors and avoid eye contact with everyone. Everyone, that is, except one man.
He stands in his indigo pants, worn tennis shoes and nondescript t-shirt, waving from the curb of the Alameda Street offramp. He never makes eye contact, never begs, never tries to sell anything, just waves. There has not been a day he isn’t there. Like visiting the circus to see the elephants, I have grown accustomed to anticipating seeing him.
He is obviously very poor, but I hope he has a safe place to sleep and food to eat. The area has several shelters and churches that provide free meals. Believing we have a moral obligation to care for the least among us, I am glad there are programs which help this man, and I do not begrudge him my higher taxes or charitable contributions. I imagine he may be the only man without a criminal record in the area. I am probably wrong.
“How am I supposed to feed my family if I have to spend the day in this class?” a student asks repeatedly.
The teacher pretends he doesn’t hear the student each time he makes this statement. I am tempted to ask how he fed his family while he was in prison, but recognize that is picking a fight so remain quiet.
Toward the end of the day, when the teacher finally acknowledges the student’s complaint camouflaged as a question, the student elaborates on the hardship.
“Your kids’ stomachs are growling. What would you do?”
The teacher simply acknowledges that it is a difficult situation, without offering advice or attempting to downplay the stress the student must be feeling. The student and teacher engage in an intricate dance of approach and retreat until it is clear that the student has no choice but to submit to the requirements of the class. Compliance is the only thing which will help him.
Stacy Nelson explains that high levels of stress caused from living in poverty “… may lead individuals to commit theft, robbery, or other violent acts.” She also points out that “[c]rime offers a way in which impoverished people can obtain material goods that they cannot attain through legitimate means. Often threat or force can help them acquire even more goods … For many impoverished people, the prize that crime yields may outweigh the risk of being caught…”
As I drive home from the classroom that afternoon, I wonder how a convicted felon and drug addict can make money to feed his kids. I can’t imagine anything legitimate and hope the children’s mother has a good job.
My latest get rich scheme was Lifewave, patches you sell to others for pain-relief, weight-loss, and general well-being. The goal is not to sell it retail, but to sign up others below you to be on auto-ship. Each person below you is put on a side, though it is NOT a pyramid scheme, and you earn money from them and everyone they sign up.
Before this it was Melaluca, and before that Herbalife. I boast that I didn’t fall for Mary Kay or American Cookware or Amway.
I’ve even opened my own personal service business, calculating how many customers I would need before I could quit my job. Despite all my attempts to get out of the rut of my job, I’ve gone to work regularly for the past 23 years. I have yet to find the right get-rich scheme.
So, when I watch movies like Blow or read in the paper about the Drug Enforcement Agency confiscating millions of dollars from a forty-something woman like me, I fantasize about the one big drug deal that would allow me to make enough money to quit my job. I wouldn’t even need to be the criminal, just a facilitator for the crime. I’m convinced I’m smart enough to just do it once, successfully, then be able to turn my weekend life into my life full-time, a life of gardening, lunching with friends, and hiking with my dogs among pine trees and laurel.
But I also recognize the risks, and weigh them against the life I have. I decide over and over that it is not worth losing the life I have even if I am in a rut. Besides, it’s not like anyone is asking me to run drugs for them.
Then I overhear a student in class explain to the teacher that she has to put up with her abusing boyfriend.
“When I was selling drugs it was easier. I had my own money. Now, I have to depend on him to help pay for the baby’s diapers and formula. I have to put up with his crap.” And I wonder, if I had nothing to lose, a life worth going to a 9 to 5 job for, would I sell drugs with all the inherent risks. If not selling drugs, what would I be willing to do for quick money – God knows I’ve peddled shake mix and cleaning products and magic patches.
The teacher reminds the student that if she sells drugs again, she will go back to prison. I remind myself over and over of the start-up costs involved in another get-rich quick scheme which never works out.
*****
Jeffrey Reiman points out that the poor are more likely to be arrested for a particular crime while the wealthy are merely warned and that the offender in prison is most likely someone from the lowest social and economic group in the nation. He goes on to explain that though white-collar crime is costly and wide-spread, it is rarely punished. When it is punished, white-collar criminals do not serve the lengthy sentences given to the poor and they do not go to the same prisons (1-10).
Upon returning from summer vacation to begin a new school year, the district office informed the teachers that each of us would have three thousand dollars to spend in our classroom “on supplies, incentives and curricular materials.” We were all ecstatic. Three thousand dollars meant no more foraging through the aisles of the dollar store for special project supplies, supplies we think are essential to having an engaging learning environment like markers and rulers and colored paper, but are not even listed on our supply order.
Eventually, as we planned how to spend the windfall, we grew suspicious. Where was this money coming from? The most believable story was that over the summer, the district office had been audited and over three million dollars was found. The Chief Accounting Officer had been embezzling the money but was discovered before she got away with it. Many teachers searched the news for a report of the crime, but our union representative explained that since all the money was recouped, the district decided against filing charges so as to avoid bad press.
Later in the lunch room, several teachers mused ruefully that they had had to suffer a deduction in pay because it was discovered they had left campus, usually to go to the dollar store, during their conference hour. Forced to take the hour as time off without pay and written up, the teachers complained about the hours and hours they spent outside of the contractual teaching day which are never reimbursed and wondered why they didn’t get off like the person trying to steal three million dollars.
*****
“Imprisoning the American Poor,” reports that
Rather than spend money on social programs, such as affordable housing, food stamps, free health care, and free quality schooling, which may prevent someone in poverty from committing crimes, money is spent on incarcerating the poor. Once the poor are incarcerated, they are then provided with housing, three meals a day, health care, and often access to school programs.
When one of our friends became a police officer in the local community, the job seemed exotic and exciting. Once he was past his probationary period, Tim invited us on ride-alongs, an opportunity for a common citizen to spend a shift with a police officer as part of the department’s community outreach program.
When my husband went, they spent the evening in a helicopter chasing down robbers and spotlighting them for the ground officers to arrest. When another friend went, they arrested several men over the course of the night, one for driving without a license, one for drunk and disorderly conduct and another for domestic violence, booking all of them into the local detention center.
My ride-along experience was quite different, beginning with the 911 operator reporting a robbery over the police radio. Tim decided that by the time he got to the scene of the reported crime the robbers would be long gone so it wasn’t worth the effort. Then he pulled over a man riding a bicycle because it was night and the bicycle didn’t have a headlight. As he got out of the police car I asked him what kind of crime not having a light is. Next he pulled over a car with a taillight out. I kept quiet about this experience, but worried that the people driving the decrepit car probably couldn’t afford to fix the taillight. I consoled myself that at least the ticket would only be a fix-it ticket, unless they couldn’t afford to even do that. Finally, he pulled in behind a restaurant/bar and handcuffed a man who was digging through the trash. Even before Tim got out of the car I scolded him, “Really, you’re going to harass a man who is searching for food?”
I had reached my breaking point. I told him how sad it was that he ignored a call about a robbery and instead spent the night harassing poor people.
Tim tried to explain to me that the minor laws allowed him to catch “these people” doing the real crimes, like stealing and drugs.
“These people’ have it hard enough without you harassing them.” I imagined they were once young boys who crossed themselves and kissed the plated metal around their necks.
We spent the rest of the night driving around peacefully through suburban neighborhoods until dawn and Tim’s shift was over.
Imagining a society without the threat of punishment for breaking the law is difficult. But considering how those punishments are decided and how they make sense within a diverse society is a thing routinely done.
A. Mitchell Polinsky and Steven Shavell point out that there is such a thing as “underdeterrence and “overdeterrence.” For instance, a parking fine of $35 for a wealthy person is “underdeterrence” because that is basically equal to the cost of premium parking. Whereas, this same fine may be “overdeterrence” for the poor, in that paying the fine could mean not being able to pay the electric bill, so the poor risk jail time for unpaid fines.
My gardener didn’t show up for several weeks and was not returning any phone calls. My husband finally went to his house and knocked on the door. His wife opened the front door a crack, slid through it then closed the door behind her.
“He’s been in jail for unpaid parking fines and now he’s lost his license.”
Our yard grows more and more like a jungle as we depend on our teenage son to do the work while we wait for our gardener to get his finances in order so he can pay his fines then go back to work. Exactly how he is going to do that is difficult for us to imagine, since we haven’t paid him in over a month.
One of the videos we show to our classes is about how to adjust for life out of prison. Though our students are already out of prison, it reviews some strategies for staying out that are good reminders like stay away from drugs and alcohol, stay away from the old hang outs, and how to take the first steps to finding a job. Like frail birds who have fallen from their nests, the threats to their well-being can be deadly.
The video was produced about ten years ago which means it also talks about how the parole officer will provide vouchers for housing and food until the parolee is able to support himself. The more strategic teachers are sure to fast forward through these parts of the video, knowing if they don’t they will have to navigate a conversation about why the students didn’t get their vouchers and how the parole agents are not doing their job.
First, housing vouchers for the general population were eliminated and only reserved for the highest risk parolees, or the sex offenders. But as the budget grew worse, even this funding was cut. Since I’ve been with the program, I have never heard of a parolee getting food vouchers. A student is provided with a list of local shelters and food banks in the area on their first day of our classes, like a map to hidden treasure.
Technically when a person is on parole, he or she is still the responsibility of the state. Parole was meant to save taxpayers money because it is cheaper to support a person in the community than in prison and to be an incentive for inmates. But now with the high cost of supervising parolees and of their persistent reincarceration which requires the services of a judge to hear the case and personnel to transport the parolee back to prison, the savings are minimal. The money for resources for the parolees to help them reintegrate into society is now non-existent.
“I’ve been in prison for twenty-five years. I have no job skills, no social skills and now no place to live and nothing to eat. The state has taken away my life and isn’t helping me to rebuild it.”
I repeat my prescribed lines in this interaction, “The state didn’t send you to prison. You broke the law which sent you to prison.”
Representative Paul Ryan provided the 2011 Republican response to the State of the Union which outlined the Republican agenda for government spending. He suggested that we need to “reform government programs” by explaining the roles of government as defending the country, securing the country’s borders, protecting innocent people from crime, and upholding the Constitutional Rights, so as “ …to ensure domestic tranquility and equal opportunity … and to help provide a safety net for those who cannot provide for themselves,” but he warned that reform means cutting programs for “…those who can provide for themselves…” or we will create “… a future in which we will transform our social safety net into a hammock, which lulls able-bodied people into lives of complacency and dependency.”
The same week, this Facebook post showed up: “Kentucky just passed the best law ever. To be on Food stamps, Medicaid, or Cash Assistance for your children or yourself, you have to pass a DRUG TEST. Now, every other state should do the same. People that work have to take a drug test, so should they. AMEN!! Re-post if you agree.”
Of course, it was clarified later that it was only a proposal.
What else would you do in a hammock except take drugs, unless you are already a lifeless carcass?
As I drive up to park in front of a classroom, the students at break loiter in the surrounding area. The smokers are standing on the green grass, under a tree, between the parole office parking lot and the warehouse parking lot, the legally required 20 feet from the building. The non-smokers congregate by the classroom door, hovering on the concrete stoop, leaning against the block wall separating the classroom entrance from the rest of the parole office, their feet kicking up dust of the barren planter. When I approach, the students part to allow me to pass to the classroom door, but continue their conversations.
“…so he placed this trailer in the field. That’s where I’m sleeping.”
“That’s so cool.”
“I know. There’s room.”
I think about how last night the temperature dropped into the 30’s and about the report on the radio explaining there are 30,000 homeless people in this county, but only 160 beds available for them each night.
This classroom alone has about 160 students, most homeless, unable to find a job or legal housing because of their felony convictions.
The classroom door opens before I’m able to hear if the other student accepts the invitation to sleep in the abandoned trailer. As I enter the classroom, I am imagine the trailer, balanced on stacks of rock, the front door gaping, several windows broken, but a dry, protected-from-the-wind place.
*****
Michelle Alexander describes how
When they get out, inmates are given “gate” money, usually just enough for a bus ticket, then left to fend for themselves.
When finding new renters for one of our properties, I chose a young couple with two young children. Carol worked at the local drugstore as a cashier and Eric had recently gone out on workman’s compensation with a hurt back but was already enrolled in community college courses to retrain for a new job. They had first and last month’s rents plus the security deposit ready to hand over once I approved their application.
They lived in our rental properties for the next six years, during which Carol got fired from her job and went on unemployment, and Eric, never moving into a different profession, tried to get on disability, originally for his back then for a mental condition. The kids grew as the family outgrew the house.
Still, they paid rent every month, on time and in cash. Feeling sorry for all their hard luck, we allowed them to do repairs on the home in exchange for some rent money. Then I brought school supplies for the kids. Finally, one Christmas we gave them a Christmas tree and presents for each of the kids.
The day I arrived to collect rent and the youngest told me she was hungry and wanted money for Del Taco I grew concerned about just how much help they needed and just how much I was being taken advantage of.
“Isn’t there food in the house?” I asked suspiciously, wondering if I needed to call Child Protective Services, since I was a teacher and a mandated reporter for child abuse or neglect. As if reading my mind, the older child chimed in, “We have bread and peanut butter. We just would rather have burritos and fries.” He said this with no guile, as if the request was reasonable and, given who I was, I should give them the money.
Then Carol walked out to let me know the rent was short because they had to fix a broken window.
“How did the window get broken?” I asked thinking that fixing a window they broke was not my financial responsibility but also recognizing that as the owner of the house I could be in trouble for renting a house that was substandard. No one wants to be a slumlord, even if the house turns into a slum because the people living there aren’t caring for it.
Carol waved at the kids. “One of them.” She handed me the money, minus the $75 it cost to fix the window.
A year later when we finally evicted them, a three month process during which we received no rent and had to pay close to $400 in legal fees, entering the house shocked me. They had locked cats in the bedrooms and poured cat litter in all the appliances. Swastikas and phone numbers decorated the pockmarked walls, and the bathroom had no fixtures.
The neighbors came over to express how happy they were that Carol and Eric were gone, but that they were not happy with us. “It’s about time. They were ruining the neighborhood, selling drugs and stuff.” I began to mentally speculate what “stuff” was when the neighbor hinted about sexual favors for drugs.
I wondered about Carol and Eric’s downward spiral from working class family to addicted, sexually deviant drug dealers who would ruin our house on purpose. I tried hard not to see them as bad people, but as people who were in a bad place and therefore acted badly, but I kept having nightmares about them barreling down the street in their primered, no muffler truck to run me over.
*****
Most state-funded building projects, like schools and prisons, are financed by bonds which require voter approval.
Howard Jarvis is at the forefront of fighting against bonds to pay for schools. In California, he spearheaded Proposition 13 which limited property taxes used for local schools. Currently, he heads the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association which teaches local voters how to mobilize against school bonds.
On the other hand, bonds for “public safety,” or the building of prisons and hiring of officers, pass because, as one article about recent bond measures pointed out, “proponents were using scare tactics… the measure was well-worded so that the message was that the money will be used ‘to fight crime, reduce gang violence and protect the fire stations’” (Mason, 2011).
*****
Loitering is a crime, punishable by fines and imprisonment, but rarely is anyone fined or imprisoned, instead they are threatened and forced to move on. For the homeless, finding a place to loiter semi-permanently is high on their list of survival needs.
During one class, a student shared with her fellow students that she was living under a bridge overpass and everything was great, until she started using drugs again.
I thought about my own family and my mom explaining how when she heard her brother and his wife were living out of their car in our home town, she drove around until she found them, brought them home and gave them my old room to live in “until they got back on their feet.” It was only a few short weeks later when my mom was ready to kick them out.
“They have no money for a place to live and we’re buying all their food. You would think they would offer to buy groceries or something but instead they come home with videos they bought at the store when picking up cigarettes. They don’t even look for jobs.”
I contemplated the precarious position my mom had put herself in, like the man willing to lay under the foot of an elephant at the circus. She wanted to care for her brother and his wife, but also did not want to be taken advantage of. While she sacrificed to be able to feed two extra mouths, they spent what little money they had on non-essentials.
The student continued to talk about her friends under the bridge and how she’d go back there once she’d finished with our program.
Another student couldn’t contain herself. “You’re crazy. Stay here. Three hots and a cot, clean clothes and medical care is better than living under a bridge.”
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press, 2010.
Blow. Dir Ted Demme. Perf Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz. New Line 2001.
Currie, Elliot. Crime and Punishment in America. New York: Picador, 1998.
“From Welfare State to Prison State: Imprisoning the American Poor.” Le Monde Diplomatique. July 14, 1998. 14 November 2010 http://mondediplo.com/1998/07/14prison .
Hales, Larry. “U.S. Prison Population Explodes.” Workers World. March 9, 2008. 15 November 2010 http://www.workers.org/2008/us/prison_0313/ .
Jarvis, Howard. “How to Defeat Prop 39 Bonds in Your Area.” Howard Jarvis taxpayers Association. 14 November 2010 http://www.hjta.org/tools/how-defeat-prop-39-bonds-your-area.
Laubscher, Luann. “What Happens When Inmates Get Sick.” Gaston Gazette. October 17, 2010. 14 November, 2010 http://www.gastongazette.com/articles/inmates-51687-jail-cell.html .
Mason, Clark. “Voters willing to hike taxes despite tough economy.” Watch Sonoma County. 2 February 2011 http://www.watchsonomacounty.com/2010/11/cities/voters-willing-to-hike-taxes-despite-tough-economy/ .
Nelson, Stacy. “Is Poverty Related to Crime?” Examiner.com. April 6, 2010. 23 November 2010 https://www.examiner.com/poverty-in-chicago/is-poverty-related-to-crime .
Polinsky, Mitchell and Steven Shavell. “Optimal Use of Fines and Imprisonment.” Elsevier Science Publishers 1984. 14 November 2010 http://law.harvard.edu/faculty/shavell/pdf/24_J_Public_Econ_89.pdf .
Reimann, Jeffery. The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class and Criminal Justice. Massachusetts: Allyn and Bacon, 2000.
Ryan, Paul. “Transcript: GOP Response from Rep Paul Ryan.” NPR. January 25, 2011. 2 February 2011 http://www.npr.org/2011/01/26/133227396/transcript-gop-response-from-rep-paul-ryan .