It’s an electric discussion about ticketing and property confiscations this week as we follow-up on our February 14 show with Pro-Publica and WBEZ. In essence, it has to do with people who can’t afford, or don’t choose to buy, a City sticker. They get a $200 ticket, and if it isn’t paid it quickly becomes $400. If they don’t pay that, they face The Boot. And the next step is impoundment. By now you owe the City at least a thousand dollars, probably more. And if you don’t pay that huge bill in time, they crush your car. And send you a hundred-dollar bill for crushing services! And, now car-less, you STILL owe the City all the fines and the hundo for the City Sticker!
Our guests, Northwestern’s Mary Patillo and UIC’s Stacey Sutton, have studied these and many related issues in depth. They tell us that these regressive, punitive municipal policies are actually contributors, in many cases, to poverty and displacement. And they disproportionately affect minority communities.
Mary Pattillo is Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University.
Stacy Sutton is Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Policy at UIC.
(This post will be updated.)
Watch the show by tapping the image above.
Read a full transcript here:CN transcript May 2 2019
chicagonewsroom.org 