The Workhouse: The Court's ATM

Into the Mix

Ben & Jerry's and Vox Creative

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.3 • 537 Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2024

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

More than half a million Americans are sitting in jail awaiting trial. And 60% of them are there because they can’t afford not to be. That’s why the Workhouse jail in St. Louis stayed so full for so long. Some people jailed there were pulled over for speeding, others learned they had outstanding warrants for probation violations. All of them owed something to the courts. In the second episode of this series, we’re taking the courts to court, to understand how the system kept The Workhouse jail full for over a century, and how Inez and the community of activists around her emptied it for good.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Into the Mix, a Ben and Jerry's podcast about joy and justice, produced with Vox Creative.
0:07.6	I'm Ashley C. Ford.
0:11.8	Hi! Good morning.
0:14.3	It's the morning after trivia night when we knock on Inez Bordeaux's front door.
0:19.3	So I need five minutes to put on my clothes. Are we starting inside or are we doing driving tour?
0:23.6	Her manicured nails are lacquered in a bright yellow, the same shade of yellow as the
0:28.6	closed the workhouse sign visible from her front window.
0:32.6	The month Inaz spent in the workhouse radicalized her.
0:43.5	She ended up at the workhouse, a notorious debtor's prison in St. Louis, because of a parole mistake that wasn't her fault. And they set her bail at $25,000. She was making $8 an hour
0:52.0	at the time. Think about that.
0:55.0	A $25,000 bail for someone whose initial offense
0:59.7	was being too poor to afford child care and rent
1:03.0	in the same month, while being a mere $57
1:08.0	too rich to qualify for child care assistance.
1:11.6	$25,000, when all she owed the state initially was $10,000.
1:19.6	So give me one second, let me put the dogs away, and then I'm going to let you in this store right here.
1:25.6	This first floor one bedroom was the only house Inez could afford with her $8 an hour job.
1:32.8	After three years of couch surfing and sleeping on the streets,
1:36.9	she was finally able to reunite and be happy with her four children here.
1:42.0	They shared her love of books and laughter in this apartment.
1:46.7	This first floor one bedroom is also the home Inaz came back to after her time at the
1:52.3	workhouse and after a judge vacated the felony on her record. It turned out, Inez should have
	...

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