&quot;Third, the legal system is extremely unfavourable to the middle-class and poor, to the extent that I would also argue with your claim that the fees are &quot;(probably) justified&quot;... Another thing to remember is that fees have become revenue generators, and to look at them as punitive damages to be payed to the public for offenses is a naive take on the ways fees have developed in the legal and justice systems.&quot; I couldn&#x27;t agree more.<p>The penalty for civil infractions is a fine and&#x2F;or jail time. We&#x27;ve become so use to just payig fines we think it&#x27;s a debtors prison if the law breaker doesn&#x27;t pay the fine so we opt to penalize then with jail time. Perhaps we should just great everyone fairly and use jail time penalties only. That could lead to some reforms read quickly. The bigger offense and issue I have is when the state then charges the inmates for room and board. That&#x27;s wrong.