Guilty of Being Poor

When a community issues arrest warrants for more offenses than it has residents, something's deeply wrong.

Here’s something you might not know about Ferguson, Missouri: In this city of 21,000 people, 16,000 have outstanding arrest warrants. In fact, in 2013 alone, authorities issued 9,000 warrants for over 32,000 offenses.
That’s one-and-a-half offenses for every resident of Ferguson in just one year.
Most of the warrants are for minor offenses such as traffic or parking violations. And they’re part of a structural pattern of abuse, according to a recent Department of Justice investigation.
The damning report found that the city prioritized aggressive revenue collection over public safety. It documented unconstitutional policing, violations of due process, and racial bias against the majority black population.
One woman’s story illustrates what’s happening to more and more people as municipal revenues become the focus of police departments all over the country.
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