It is absolutely absurd and mind boggling that people can be arrested based on fare evasion charges. The various cases described in the reading are such miniscule offences that anyone could have done if they were in difficult circumstances, moreover why resort to such extreme measures when a simple fine would be enough— just like how drivers get tickets instead of being arrested for minor offences such as not paying the parking meter.

  What is especially concerning about this practice is that blacks fare the worst in these situations with “36% getting sentences that involved jail time.” It does not seem fair that the life of a young person should be so greatly impacted by such a minor offense. The NYPD argues that arrests for offenses as small as this helps prevent future violent crime. Personally I disagree and I think there are better solutions to this situation. According to the reading most of the people committing these offenses are young people of color living in poverty stricken communities, therefore sending them to jail isn’t going to solve much. The real problem is the fact that these young people can not afford the MTA fares but they still need a way to go home and I believe that it is the government’s job to ensure that its young underprivileged youth has the necessary means of transportation– that’s more of a realistic and effective way to cut down on crime, by allocating the proper resources to those that need them.

 The statistics in this site remind me of “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander, which discusses the injustice of the war on drugs  that encouraged police to target African American communities and arrest people for minor drug offenses; this has led to mass incarceration that has disadvantaged generations of young people of color, especially males, in poor communities. It has prevented them from being available and supportive for their families and from getting jobs or an education that would allow them to improve their lives— it has locked the people in these communities into a cycle of incarceration and poverty.