Class & Event Types:
Books & MoreAge Group:
Adults- Registration is required for this event.
- Registration will open on July 22, 2025 @ 7:00pm.
- A library card is not required.
Program Description
Event Details
Please pick up a copy of the book at the hosting branch.
Copies are available starting one month prior to the discussion, while supplies last.
In Profit and Punishment, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist exposes the tragedy of modern-day debtors prisons, and how they destroy the lives of poor Americans swept up in a system designed to penalize the most impoverished.
As a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tony Messenger has spent years in county and municipal courthouses documenting how poor Americans are convicted of minor crimes and then saddled with exorbitant fines and fees. If they are unable to pay, they are often sent to prison, where they are then charged a pay-to-stay bill, in a cycle that soon creates a mountain of debt that can take years to pay off. These insidious penalties are used to raise money for broken local and state budgets, often overseen by for-profit companies, and it is one of the central issues of the criminal justice reform movement.
Search for the ebook and/or eaudiobook HERE.
Disclaimer(s)
Accommodations
If you need accommodations for this program, please contact the Library as soon as you are able.
Sponsored by Friends
Sponsored by the Friends of the Library.