By The Times Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times, March 8, 2020
Imagine a woman named Monica. She trudges up the steps toward the courthouse door but stops short, overcome by a feeling of dread. Each time she’d walked through that door in the past she’d had to leave behind something of value before she could walk out again.
Once it was the money for next month’s rent, because she had to pay a traffic fine. And then it was her apartment itself, because she was too many months in arrears. And, for a time, it was her freedom, because she was caught stealing in an effort to cobble together another security deposit on a new place. And with her jail term she lost her job, and her only source of income, because of course she was unable to show up for work while she was locked up, and was unable to convince her employer to hire her back when she got out.
Another time she’d had to leave her own father behind in the courtroom, after his mental illness led him into a confrontation with a neighbor and then a police officer. He was now on a sad but common cycle of jail, to release, to the street, to another incident, and back to jail.
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