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nprjoeshapiro15 karma

I did. Spoke to plaintiffs there. That's coming.

nprjoeshapiro13 karma

We found it's typical that one charge can carry costs of hundreds or even thousands of dollars. For a public defender, for example, 43 states plus DC allow charges. Sometimes just a simple administrative fee--that ranges from $10 in NM to up to $400 in Arkansas. But some states will bill you thousands for the public defender--in case you, say, win the lottery tomorrow.

nprjoeshapiro9 karma

100 duck-sized Garrison Keilors, because that's a Garrison Keilor below average

nprjoeshapiro9 karma

Wow. I'd like to have enough money not to worry about recurring traffic tickets. (I'd like a Porsche, too.) I think we have to focus, though, on not being so punitive of the poor. And that was one of the conclusions of our series: We end up with a two-tiered system of justice. The rich pay off their fines and are free of the system. The poor, as people here have noted, get caught in a seemingly unending series of debt.

nprjoeshapiro8 karma

I think investigative journalism is having a rebirth. Newspapers, sadly, as you point out are getting smaller and doing less of this. TV news does less, too. But other places are filling the gap. ProPublica and the Center for Public Integrity have won Pulitzer Prizes for recent investigative reporting. BuzzFeed and other places are taking on investigative reporting in serious ways.