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 am truly taken aback about some of the replies on this thread. Jailing this woman was not the answer! Period.
It was a $20 fine but $150 court costs added.
I think a thorough check on everything in the story should be run through the wringer to ensure thing checks out.
” In public school this would count for nothing because the school gets paid per student-day.”
Maybe it’s me,but I don’t get your point.
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Well, in the old days, a defiant kid who didn't want to go to school was told "If you aren't dressed and on the bus in 10 minutes, your father (or "Uncle Joey", or whoever) will take a cane to your backside. But these days, even saying that will land the parent in jail and the kid put into foster care.
If the State removes parents ability to effectively discipline the kid, then the State should not hold the parent responsible.
I would probably be fined for keeping my straight A daughter out of school because they care less for performance than for the money they get from the state.
I’ve never heard of fines for absence due to sickness but maybe it varies state to state.It makes no sense.
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DId you ever get a traffic citation for a moving violation? You’re given the option (usually) of pleading guilty and paying the fine before the trial date, OR going to court to fight it. If you choose the latter, even if you win vs. the ticket, you will pay court costs. It’s a no win proposition.,
Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution does not ban the penalty of prison for debtors, but merely grants Congress the authority to standardize bankrupcy laws across states, since the proliferation of such laws among states hampered commerce. I don’t know where you get that this precludes debtor’s prison if the Congress so decides to allow for this through law.
The Constitution does not make it mandatory to go to school, but states most certainly do, and that is the power that is vested in states, as is the conservative position.
Was the fine a "suggestion?" Could she ignore it indefinitely with no consequence? I really want answers to these questions.
“So, what do you suggest? That all laws be “suggestions?””
How about the government collects its debts like anyone else, instead of trying to use criminal punishments to do it?
Some school districts will haul you in front of a judge to make you answer for the crime of allowing your child to have too many unexcused absences. And a note from mom stating you were sick will not excuse you, it has to be from a doctor.
A fine should be a fine. It's not an excuse for the robbers in black robes to get a blank check to pad their pension funds.
“If theft under $20 is a misdemeanor, a citation, basically, then what happens when the offender, who is caught red-handed, ignores court orders to pay the fine, refuses to come to court when summoned, and consequently racks up other contempt charges?”
Contempt is a different matter from not paying the fines. Contempt is a criminal matter, while not paying fines is not criminal. Everyone else in this country gets along just fine without using criminal punishments to collect their debts, why can’t government do the same?
Many laws should be.
That is a naive, unthinking statement. What does "collect its debts" mean? Pass a plate that people may, or may not, contribute to for their violations of laws which we agree with?
Are all criminal penalties to be fine only? Fines which will never be paid if there is no consequence for not paying them?
“cut down the size of the vampire. . . “
It wasn’t the $20 truancy fines but rather the court costs that drove up the debt to $2000.
I’m sure this woman had to be on one welfare program after another with 7 kids and no father in the home. Rather than send her to jail the authorities could have deducted her truancy fines from her welfare checks thereby avoiding all these ridiculous court costs.
I also wonder if she had the choice of going to jail or having her fines deducted from her welfare, whether she would opt for a couple of kid-free days in jail considering her history of somehow birthing 7 kids with no father.
Many laws should be.
That would negate the definition of a "law." My god, such stupid answers on this thread.
“What if the offender never pays the fines?
Are the authorities just going to keep asking “pretty please?” in perpetuity? Stupid.”
You act as if there is no middle ground between jail and saying “pretty please”. Well, what if someone owes you money? You cannot send them to jail, so are you left with no other option but saying “pretty please”? Of course not.
What is “stupid” is you pretending that all the normal avenues of debt collection simply don’t exist, in order to justify the government jailing people over nonsense like this.
There are two possible responses to the imposition of a fine: either the fine is paid, or it is not. It might be paid in installments, or the total amount may be reduced, but this is the binary reality. I’m not sure what reality you’re living it.
“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?
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