Our criminal legal system is an assembly line that normalizes modern debtors’ prisons and that uses the mass processing of criminal cases to generate revenue on the backs of the poorest people in our society. We fight the systemic criminalization of poverty in all of its forms.
Civil Rights Corps filed a landmark challenge to the City of Ferguson’s conversion of its legal system into a mechanism of revenue generation, by charging poor arrestees astronomical fees and jailing them for their inability to pay.
This case challenges the private probation companies in Giles County that traps the poorest people in a cycle of probation violation, extension of probation violation, extension of supervision, extra fees, and repeated jailing.
Civil Rights Corps, in partnership with ArchCity Defenders and the Saint Louis University School of Law Legal Clinics, reached a landmark settlement for impoverished people who were illegally jailed in Jennings, Missouri.
In Louisiana, the judges who collect fines and fees from poor defendants depend on that money to fund their own budgets. We filed suit in against the New Orleans for jailing thousands of people each year who can't pay these fines and fees.
This case challenges the unconstitutional racketeering enterprise that facilitates the transfer of millions of dollars in wealth from the poorest people in Oklahoma to a private debt-collection company, the police, and judges.
We recently announced a landmark settlement in a first-of-its-kind class action case in federal court against Rutherford County and PCC, Inc., a private probation company that made millions of dollars by exploiting the poorest people in Rutherford County.