“We are focused on the punishment of poverty as such and the cascading harms that flow from driving people further into debt when they can’t meet their basic needs,” she said.

Among other things, the suit alleges that courts issuing suspensions for failure to pay court costs and fines fail to take into account a debtor’s ability to pay.

The justice center said that in the year that ended June 30, 2015, the Virginia DMV issued 366,773 orders of driver’s license suspensions resulting from unpaid court fines or costs — more than one-third of which were for offenses unrelated to driving.

Most of those affected are low-income drivers, since wealthier Virginians can cover court costs.

The loss of a license can mean the loss of the only way to reach work. As a result, many people are forced to choose between losing their jobs or risking getting locked up for driving illegally.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice waded into the case by filing a brief that contends that suspending a driver’s license is unconstitutional if it is done without providing due process and without assessing whether the individual’s failure to pay was willful or the result of an inability to pay.