Colorado Springs To Pay People Jailed For Not Paying Fines
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Colorado Springs has agreed to compensate dozens of people, most of them homeless, put in jail because they couldn't afford to pay fines for minor offenses like panhandling and jaywalking.
Under a deal with the American Civil Liberties Union announced Thursday, the city will pay them $125 for each day they spent behind bars. The city says municipal courts have also stopped imposing "pay or serve" sentences and the ordinances that allowed the practice have been changed.
The ACLU of Colorado's legal director Mark Silverstein says such sentences were banned by a 1971 Supreme Court ruling but still persist at some city-level courts. New Orleans is facing a federal lawsuit claiming its criminal court routinely uses jail or the threat of jail to get poor people to pay court debts.
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