&gt; they&#x27;re planning to turn the Texas prison system into de facto debtors&#x27; prisons<p>Whoa there, hold on a second. That&#x27;s not what&#x27;s going on at all. The plates are being run to detect if the car&#x27;s owner has <i>outstanding court fines</i>, which are not akin to a simple debt. These are (probably) justified, punitive fees imposed on an individual for some kind of offense against the law (and by extension, the public).  It&#x27;s not the case that the police are extorting people that are behind on their rent&#x2F;credit card payments or something.<p>That said, this behavior is still troubling insofar as it is likely to disproportionately result in the targeting and punishment of the poor, which is in itself a rather problematic issue. And it&#x27;s certainly troubling that the additional fee being imposed to process payment for the fines collected is far above what seems to be (at a glance, anyway) a reasonable margin for operating costs.