JEFFERSON CITY 鈥 Post-Dispatch metro columnist Tony Messenger has won a Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts from the American Bar Association for his coverage of debtors prisons in Missouri.
The bar association said Messenger provided 鈥減owerful commentary鈥 about 鈥淢issourians being jailed, essentially, for being poor.鈥
The Silver Gavel Awards, the bar association said, 鈥渞ecognize outstanding work that fosters the American public鈥檚 understanding of law and the legal system.鈥
Messenger鈥檚 columns focused on the jailing of people who struggled to pay 鈥渂oard bills鈥 that stemmed from their time behind bars. The bills charge for the cost of imprisonment and can total thousands of dollars.
In one column, Messenger profiled Brooke Bergen, of Salem, Missouri, who pleaded guilty to shoplifting after stealing an $8 tube of mascara from Walmart. She got probation, but had to submit to twice-weekly drug tests that cost her $30 a week.
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When Bergen did not answer a call from Lisa Blackwell, who was administering the drug tests, Bergen spent a year in jail. When she was released, Bergen was given a $15,900 bill.
Messenger鈥檚 reporting shook the halls of power in Jefferson City, prompting legislation doing away with jail time for failure to pay jail debt. Gov. Mike Parson signed the measure last year.
The Missouri Supreme Court last year unanimously ruled in favor of two men Messenger had profiled.
Messenger won a Pulitzer Prize for his columns last year.
鈥淢essenger鈥檚 tenacious reporting overcame efforts by some local officials to thwart his coverage and block his access to records,鈥 Gilbert Bailon, the editor of the Post-Dispatch, said in a statement.
鈥淏ut he was able to reveal the truth about abuses of vulnerable people who had no recourse in the Missouri legal system,鈥 Bailon said. 鈥淗is columns made the public aware of an unjust system, which led lawmakers to change the law and procedures to prevent future abuses.鈥
Messenger, noting the Legislature attempted this year to overturn recent reforms, said he expects to continue to write about debtors prisons 鈥渇or years to come.鈥
鈥淲hen poor people are jailed simply because they can鈥檛 afford a board bill or other costs and fees it exacerbates poverty in a cruel way. I hope my reporting on this topic has helped encourage needed reform,鈥 he said.
author Emily Bazelon for her book 鈥淐harged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration鈥 and the Reuters news service for an investigative series titled 鈥Hidden Injustice,鈥 which was also published at stltoday.com. A documentary, a film drama and a podcast were also recognized by the ABA.
Jailed for being poor is Missouri epidemic: A series of columns from Tony Messenger
Tony Messenger has written about Missouri cases where people were charged for their time in jail or on probation, then owe more money than their fines or court costs.聽
The Pulitzer Prize board considered these columns when it decided to award the prize for commentary to metro columnist Tony Messenger.聽
In a twist of irony, one judge no longer calls them 鈥減ayment review hearings.鈥 Instead, he鈥檚 even more direct. Now they are called 鈥渄ebt colle…
鈥淭he jail is emptying out. People that do come in are able to bond out quickly. None of the girls here are being held for financial reasons. T…
In a case of civil contempt 鈥 such as when a judge jails a reporter for not revealing a source, or an attorney for failing to follow an order …
Even with the state鈥檚 top court making progress in eradicating the practice of putting people in jail because they can鈥檛 afford to be in jail,…
鈥淭here are a pile of cases where people owe us money,鈥 the judge told the defendant, a painter, who said he was having a hard time finding wor…
No longer, the court said in one voice, can judges in Missouri threaten indigent defendants with jail time for their inability to be able to a…
Disparate treatment of people charged with crimes offers a glimpse into a fundamental problem in the application of criminal justice in Missou…
Weiss wants the Legislature to make it illegal for counties to charge defendants for their time behind bars.
鈥淗ow can they cancel a court date then issue a warrant without even telling you the new court date?鈥 Sharp wonders.
His bill would stop the practice in Missouri of state police agencies avoiding state jurisdiction by seeking asset forfeiture under guise of f…
"He sat in jail because he was poor," public defender Matthew Mueller聽said of his client.
The two defendants are Exhibits A and B of why Missouri has become the front line in a national war on poverty and the courts.
She knows what she did was wrong. She knows she should have been punished.
鈥淚t's been a hard road,鈥 she told me recently. 鈥淩eally hard.鈥
For decades, Missouri鈥檚 corrections budget has been rising. So has its prison population, with a 鈥渢ough on crime鈥 philosophy filling prisons w…
鈥淲e鈥檙e hamstringing the very people who we want to go out and get a job,鈥 Lummus says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 self-defeating.鈥
In his regular appearance on the McGraw Milhaven show on KTRS radio, Metro columnist Tony Messenger discusses his ongoing debtors' prison series.
He did his time. Then he got the bill: $3,150 for his stay behind bars.
A year-end update on some of the cases Tony Messenger wrote about during 2018.
The primary difference between the poor people who have been 鈥渢errorized鈥 in Edmundson or Jennings or Ferguson, compared with those in Salem a…
The Court of Appeals in the Western District of Missouri determined that the practice of using the courts to try to collect board bills is ill…
Some counties in Missouri don't charge board bills. Those include聽the most urban counties in the state: both the city and county of 50度灰视频,…
I did my time and then some. This is how they get people. They keep them on probation and then if they don't pay their board bill they violate…
By 2009, Rapp was behind in her payments and the court revoked her probation. She did a couple of days in jail and her cash bond of $400 was a…
Every week in Missouri, a judge somewhere holds a crowded docket to collect room and board from people who were recently in jail. The judges c…
鈥淚 don鈥檛 see why he has to keep going to court every month,鈥 she says. Sharon uses her Social Security income to try to keep him out of jail. …
Because Precious Jones was late to jail, prosecutor and judge seek to add to her sentence.
The Missouri Supreme Court and Missouri Legislature should revisit their 2015 and 2016 efforts to reform courts. More work is necessary.
Other than now being required to meet federal standards for that drug testing, private probation companies face nearly no oversight in Missour…
鈥淚 messed up on probation,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t was my fault.鈥 Still, he doesn鈥檛 think it makes sense that he鈥檚 still hauled to court once a month wi…
Murr owed Dent County about $4,000 for her 鈥渂oard bill鈥 for the 95 days she had been jailed.
The domestic violence victim, Gaddis says, wouldn鈥檛 make a report to police because she feared going to jail herself and losing her child.聽
鈥淭hey make you jump through hoops,鈥 Bote says, 鈥渁nd then they keep moving the hoops higher.鈥
William Everts stole from a church. Almost immediately, he knew it was a bad idea.
Bergen has the sort of back story that would inspire one of the movies or television episodes based in the Ozarks that seem to be all the rage…
Clark ended up spending 495 days in county jail awaiting a trial that still hasn鈥檛 come.
Pritchett first called me last year, after I wrote about a St. Francois County woman who was sent to prison for failing to pay court costs. He…
Rob Hopple had been in jail since May after falling behind on payments on an ankle bracelet. Court dates kept coming and going, with the prose…
The bills are that high because the two criminal defendants couldn鈥檛 afford to pay for an initial sentence behind bars for relatively minor of…
鈥淭he practical reality is that people are being arrested for being poor,鈥 Mueller says. 鈥淎nd there鈥檚 nothing they can do about it. They just s…
At least twice in recent years, the Missouri Supreme Court has overturned harsh sentences issued by a judge after she sent people to prison so…
Branson, in early 2018, was in Desloge, Mo., now, living with her 15-year-old son, checking in with her parole officer, hoping never to go bac…
Officially, Victoria Branson鈥檚 probation was revoked because she never paid the state the past due support and the court costs, which rang up …
Jack Suntrup • 573-556-6184 @JackSuntrup on Twitter jsuntrup@post-dispatch.com