Laws Relating to the Poor

Laws Relating to the Poor PDF Author: Robert Foley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Book Description


Obligation, Entitlement and Dispute under the English Poor Laws

Obligation, Entitlement and Dispute under the English Poor Laws PDF Author: Peter Jones
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443886610
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 365

Book Description
With its focus on poverty and welfare in England between the seventeenth and later nineteenth centuries, this book addresses a range of questions that are often thought of as essentially “modern”: How should the state support those in work but who do not earn enough to get by? How should communities deal with in-migrants and immigrants who might have made only the lightest contribution to the economic and social lives of those communities? What basket of welfare rights ought to be attached to the status of citizen? How might people prove, maintain and pass on a sense of “belonging” to a place? How should and could the poor navigate a welfare system which was essentially discretionary? What agency could the poor have and how did ordinary officials understand their respective duties to the poor and to taxpayers? And how far was the state successful in introducing, monitoring and maintaining a uniform welfare system which matched the intent and letter of the law? This volume takes these core questions as a starting point. Synthesising a rich body of sources ranging from pauper letters through to legal cases in the highest courts in the land, this book offers a re-evaluation of the Old and New Poor Laws. Challenging traditional chronological dichotomies, it evaluates and puts to use new sources, and questions a range of long-standing assumptions about the experience of being poor. In doing so, the compelling voices of the poor move to centre stage and provide a human dimension to debates about rights, obligations and duties under the Old and New Poor Laws.

Not a Crime to Be Poor

Not a Crime to Be Poor PDF Author: Peter Edelman
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 162097553X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
Awarded "Special Recognition" by the 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Book & Journalism Awards Finalist for the American Bar Association's 2018 Silver Gavel Book Award Named one of the "10 books to read after you've read Evicted" by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Essential reading for anyone trying to understand the demands of social justice in America."—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy Winner of a special Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the book that Evicted author Matthew Desmond calls "a powerful investigation into the ways the United States has addressed poverty . . . lucid and troubling" In one of the richest countries on Earth it has effectively become a crime to be poor. For example, in Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. Department of Justice didn't just expose racially biased policing; it also exposed exorbitant fines and fees for minor crimes that mainly hit the city's poor, African American population, resulting in jail by the thousands. As Peter Edelman explains in Not a Crime to Be Poor, in fact Ferguson is everywhere: the debtors' prisons of the twenty-first century. The anti-tax revolution that began with the Reagan era led state and local governments, starved for revenues, to squeeze ordinary people, collect fines and fees to the tune of 10 million people who now owe $50 billion. Nor is the criminalization of poverty confined to money. Schoolchildren are sent to court for playground skirmishes that previously sent them to the principal's office. Women are evicted from their homes for calling the police too often to ask for protection from domestic violence. The homeless are arrested for sleeping in the park or urinating in public. A former aide to Robert F. Kennedy and senior official in the Clinton administration, Peter Edelman has devoted his life to understanding the causes of poverty. As Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy has said, "No one has been more committed to struggles against impoverishment and its cruel consequences than Peter Edelman." And former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes, "If there is one essential book on the great tragedy of poverty and inequality in America, this is it."

The Solidarities of Strangers

The Solidarities of Strangers PDF Author: Lynn Hollen Lees
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521572613
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

Book Description
A study of English policies toward the poor from the 1600s to the present, showing how clients and officials negotiated welfare settlements.

Poor Relief in England, 1350–1600

Poor Relief in England, 1350–1600 PDF Author: Marjorie Keniston McIntosh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139503650
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391

Book Description
Between the mid-fourteenth century and the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, English poor relief moved toward a more coherent and comprehensive network of support. Marjorie McIntosh's study, the first to trace developments across that time span, focuses on three types of assistance: licensed begging and the solicitation of charitable alms; hospitals and almshouses for the bedridden and elderly; and the aid given by parishes. It explores changing conceptions of poverty and charity and altered roles for the church, state and private organizations in the provision of relief. The study highlights the creativity of local people in responding to poverty, cooperation between national levels of government, the problems of fraud and negligence, and mounting concern with proper supervision and accounting. This ground-breaking work challenges existing accounts of the Poor Laws, showing that they addressed problems with forms of aid already in use rather than creating a new system of relief.

The Other America

The Other America PDF Author: Michael Harrington
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 068482678X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Book Description
Examines the economic underworld of migrant farm workers, the aged, minority groups, and other economically underprivileged groups.

The Laws Relating to the Poor

The Laws Relating to the Poor PDF Author: Edmund Bott
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law reports, digests, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 1022

Book Description


Guide to the Archives of the Office of Public Works

Guide to the Archives of the Office of Public Works PDF Author: Rena Lohan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780707603797
Category : Archives
Languages : en
Pages : 307

Book Description
Records of the Office of Public Works more than 30 years old have been transferred to the National Archives, Dublin. The types of public works records are described, then listed with call numbers.

A Pound of Flesh

A Pound of Flesh PDF Author: Alexes Harris
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610448553
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
Over seven million Americans are either incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, with their criminal records often following them for life and affecting access to higher education, jobs, and housing. Court-ordered monetary sanctions that compel criminal defendants to pay fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution further inhibit their ability to reenter society. In A Pound of Flesh, sociologist Alexes Harris analyzes the rise of monetary sanctions in the criminal justice system and shows how they permanently penalize and marginalize the poor. She exposes the damaging effects of a little-understood component of criminal sentencing and shows how it further perpetuates racial and economic inequality. Harris draws from extensive sentencing data, legal documents, observations of court hearings, and interviews with defendants, judges, prosecutors, and other court officials. She documents how low-income defendants are affected by monetary sanctions, which include fees for public defenders and a variety of processing charges. Until these debts are paid in full, individuals remain under judicial supervision, subject to court summons, warrants, and jail stays. As a result of interest and surcharges that accumulate on unpaid financial penalties, these monetary sanctions often become insurmountable legal debts which many offenders carry for the remainder of their lives. Harris finds that such fiscal sentences, which are imposed disproportionately on low-income minorities, help create a permanent economic underclass and deepen social stratification. A Pound of Flesh delves into the court practices of five counties in Washington State to illustrate the ways in which subjective sentencing shapes the practice of monetary sanctions. Judges and court clerks hold a considerable degree of discretion in the sentencing and monitoring of monetary sanctions and rely on individual values—such as personal responsibility, meritocracy, and paternalism—to determine how much and when offenders should pay. Harris shows that monetary sanctions are imposed at different rates across jurisdictions, with little or no state government oversight. Local officials’ reliance on their own values and beliefs can also push offenders further into debt—for example, when judges charge defendants who lack the means to pay their fines with contempt of court and penalize them with additional fines or jail time. A Pound of Flesh provides a timely examination of how monetary sanctions permanently bind poor offenders to the judicial system. Harris concludes that in letting monetary sanctions go unchecked, we have created a two-tiered legal system that imposes additional burdens on already-marginalized groups.

Solomon's Knot

Solomon's Knot PDF Author: Robert D. Cooter
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691147922
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Book Description
"Cooter and Schfer provide a thorough introduction to growth economics through the lens of law and economics. They do a masterful job of weaving in historical anecdotes from all over the world, detailed discussions of historical transformations, theoretical literature, empirical studies, and numerous clever hypotheticals. Scholars as well as general readers will find this book to be very useful and informative."--Henry N. Butler, George Mason University -- "This book distills and presents in a lucid and often even entertaining way the main insights and contributions of law and economics to meeting the challenges of growth for developing countries. Cooter and Schfer argue that market freedom is the key to growth, but that it needs to be sustained by the appropriate legal rules and institutions."--Robert Howse, coauthor of "The Regulation of International Trade."