× Expand University of Minnesota professor Joe Soss described how the criminal justice system is often used as a revenue generator at a lecture at UWM last Friday.

It was more than four years ago that a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. shot and killed Michael Brown—an unarmed black man. The aftermath of Brown’s death included riots, an investigation and a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) report. It is the DOJ report that University of Minnesota professor Joe Soss is using to write a new book about the criminal justice system and revenue making.

Soss visited UW-Milwaukee last Friday to deliver a talk about that subject, speaking for nearly two hours while also fielding questions.

“In America today, roughly 10 million people owe a total of about $50 billion in criminal justice debt, and make nearly $40 billion in payments each year,” he said to a room filled with approximately 50 interested citizens. “The revenues they generate flow not only to governments, but also to a wide array of for-profit firms operating throughout the criminal justice system….and not surprisingly, given what we know about this system, the burdens of this resource extraction regime are disproportionately borne by poor people of color.”

Soss, who has written three books about poverty and democracy, is a professor for the study of public service at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. He is currently working on a new book with Joshua Page, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota, to explore what they call the “financialization” of the criminal justice system. They view its operations today as a “predatory” system of governance.

“We have to look at the connection between fines and fees and everything else,” he said. “All of the things that are not punishment, but that are about sucking money out of people, for people who are already being punished in prison.”

Predatory System

The DOJ report about Ferguson, Mo. said the city was operating in a “predatory system of governance,” meaning the police were acting as enforcers for a program that used fines and fees to gain resources from poor communities of color. The report found that black residents made up 90% of those ticketed for safety violations. The report also said that residents of Ferguson were ensnared in a perpetual debt trap when it came to paying off fines and fees.

“It reveals a broad complex of predatory criminal justice practices that are widespread and worthy of far more critical analysis than they have received,” he said.

Soss said that just from 1991 to 2004, the percent of prisoners reporting legal financial obligations grew from 25% to 66%. Prison management is also concerning to Soss, as he explained that prison management contracts represent a $5 billion industry today, meaning more and more prisons are being privately managed. And although Soss said that black men are usually targeted by the criminal justice system, he also said that 44% of black women have a family member in prison in America today, meaning that women make up an estimated 83% of family members covering costs for incarcerated populations, as they often co-sign bail contracts.

Friends of the Shepherd Help support Milwaukee's locally owned free weekly newspaper. LEARN MORE

Milwaukee

The 2010 Census showed that Wisconsin had the highest percentage of incarcerated black men in the nation. And a 2013 UW-Milwaukee study found that from 1990-2012, Milwaukee imprisoned 26,222 black men from the county—or more than half of all African American men in their thirties and early forties. And regarding drug offenses? From 2002 to 2005, African American men had 11 to 12 times as many drug-related prison admissions as white men.

Although Soss did not speak specifically talk about Milwaukee, he did say he sees this across the nation.

“The police have been really quite open in this country in backing the Trump administration and pushing for tougher and tougher approaches,” he said. “I think we really have to think about the police as being political actors, both in the sense that they’re really influencing policy and the elections and also political actors in the community.”

The City of Milwaukee budget that was passed by the Common Council last week showed that the Milwaukee Police Department received $299 million of the $1.5 billion City of Milwaukee 2019 budget.

Soss ended his talk by explaining that many of these efforts are hidden from those who do not experience them on a daily basis. He said that people who are poor and live in racially segregated communities “know these practices well.”

“No effort to deepen democracy in America—and no scholarly community dedicated to a systematic understanding of U.S. politics and policy can succeed so long as it ignores their plight,” he said.