To: The Pennsylvania State House, The Pennsylvania State Senate, and Governor Tom Wolf
Condemn Pennsylvania's cruel punishment of families over school truancy.
Pennsylvania must stop punishing truancy by imposing costly fines and jail time on often-struggling families.
Why is this important?
Eileen DiNino of Reading, Pennsylvania, died in her cell last Saturday. [1] The mother of seven children had been sentenced to serve 48 hours in jail for owing $2,000 in fines and court costs due to her children's truancy from school. Within hours, she was dead and her seven children had lost their mother.
The cause of death is unknown, but what we do know is that since 2000, the State of Pennsylvania has sent 1,600 other people, mostly women, to jail just in Berks county over truancy fines. Why is Pennsylvania running what amounts to debtors' prisons for poor families with serious problems? How do they think it works that sending an impoverished parent to jail helps a family support children who are struggling in school? State budget cuts have led to a judicial system that tries to pay for itself by charging defendants for everything from computer fees to postage costs, and then jailing people who can't pay in a national penal system infamous for medical neglect.
It's a horrible system that shouldn't take a woman's death to wake people up to want to change. But Eileen DiNino's children have to suffer the horror of having their mother taken from them so cruelly for the rest of their lives, and to have this happen one time is to have it happen too many times.
Stand with us to demand that Pennsylvania stop punishing truancy by imposing costly fines and jail time on struggling families.
[1] - "Woman Dies After Being Sent to Pennsylvania Jail Over Unpaid Children's Truancy Fines," Tara Murtha, RH Reality Check, June 12, 2014.
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/06/12/woman-dies-sent-pennsylvania-jail-unpaid-childrens-truancy-fines/
The cause of death is unknown, but what we do know is that since 2000, the State of Pennsylvania has sent 1,600 other people, mostly women, to jail just in Berks county over truancy fines. Why is Pennsylvania running what amounts to debtors' prisons for poor families with serious problems? How do they think it works that sending an impoverished parent to jail helps a family support children who are struggling in school? State budget cuts have led to a judicial system that tries to pay for itself by charging defendants for everything from computer fees to postage costs, and then jailing people who can't pay in a national penal system infamous for medical neglect.
It's a horrible system that shouldn't take a woman's death to wake people up to want to change. But Eileen DiNino's children have to suffer the horror of having their mother taken from them so cruelly for the rest of their lives, and to have this happen one time is to have it happen too many times.
Stand with us to demand that Pennsylvania stop punishing truancy by imposing costly fines and jail time on struggling families.
[1] - "Woman Dies After Being Sent to Pennsylvania Jail Over Unpaid Children's Truancy Fines," Tara Murtha, RH Reality Check, June 12, 2014.
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/06/12/woman-dies-sent-pennsylvania-jail-unpaid-childrens-truancy-fines/