LastWeekTonight
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 7 months, 2015–2020
17:55 · 12M views · Mar 23, 2015
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on municipal violations. It shows how small fines and fees escalate for people who cannot pay and how private probation and ticket revenue can ruin lives.
HN commenters point to it as a clear account of how minor infractions punish the poor.
10 comments from Hacker News
Well, I can give you a simple example. Where I grew up, you'd hear a gunshot every so often. No one paid it any mind - we knew it was the neighbors hunting out of season. Technically a crime. But we all knew they and their children needed the meat. If everyone did it, the deer population would collapse and no one could hunt effectively even in-season. If someone had called a wildlife officer they could have certainly made the trek down. But no one would think to call the wildlife officers on them, because we knew it would lead to their children going hungry. I think the thing people from rich neighbourhoods miss about that sort of thing is that when they hear stories of that nature [1], people's children going hungry over a minor infraction is seen as a failure of empathy on the constabulary's part. It's not. It's a failure of the law, and the constabulary's job is to uphold the law, not play social worker to people who break it. Hence our community's collective judgement that it was in everyone's best interest if the wildlife officer never found out about our neighbor's poaching activities. [1] Joe Oliver has a great rant about a similar situation, lest readers think this only works in rural settings: this video
>How much can the government be stealing from you if you have no money? John Oliver did a good breakdown of how municipalities do pretty nasty things when you can't pay your tickets. this video
This is so sad. This has got to stop. (repost from below) bsimpson 2 hours ago Here's the John Oliver version of the same story: this video
Even more relevant is his piece on municipal violations and how they can unfairly steamroll the poor with escalating fees. this video
Here's the John Oliver version of the same story: this video (Also, incognito mode is your friend when cookies conspire against you.)