Fare evasion: the act of riding on public transport and avoiding payment for the required ticket of travel.
In July 2017, the Fare Evasion Decriminalization Act of 2017 was presented to the D.C. Council. If passed, this act would make fare-dodging a civil act instead of a criminal act. The punishable fine would be no more than $100. The bill removes criminal penalties for fare evasion that currently subject violators to fines of up to $300, arrest, and imprisonment for up to 10 days.
Fare-dodging makes up 50% of all arrests in the metro system over a fare that could be as low as $2. Nearly 40 percent of the city’s commuters take some form of public transit. Many D.C. residents lack basic economic security and have been pushed away from jobs and schools; the increase in fares makes it harder for them to get to work.
The Save our System Coalition, a transit Union-funded activist group, is supporting Fare Evasion Decriminalization. Save Our System disputed WMATA’s characterization of fare evasion arrests, arguing that these policies disproportionately target low-income people of color. Progressive activists and all but 4 D.C. council members state that the policy has a disproportionate racial impact. Studies show people of color are stopped more often than their white counterparts. Metro Police targeted metro stops heavily used by youth of color. Fifteen percent of all stops in or around Gallery Place and 14% in or around the Anacostia station. Decriminalization will end this type of discriminatory action.
D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) even pointed out this racial discrimination as he himself stated being a white man in a business suit and avoiding to pay his fare has caused no penalties or discrimination. “I can’t tell you the number of times that I’ve tapped my card and it gave me the beep that said my balance had dropped below what the fare was,” said Allen, a daily bus rider. “And the driver just said, ‘Just fill it up when you get to the station.’ ” “I’ve never once thought, ‘I’m going to actually get a citation or have a criminal record for riding the bus,’ ” he said.
Another issue is homeless youth and their commute to school. Approximately one in every 24 students attending DC public schools and public charter schools is identified as homeless. The main barrier for homeless youth obtaining an education is transportation, which is important because if there isn’t a way to get to school then it becomes difficult to have an education. Students between the ages 5-21 are offered free public transportation with a D.C. one card. If these students lose their cards then they do not have a reliable way to get to school unless they evade the fare. This moment can potentially result in a criminal record. The proceeds of such arrests go to the city where the incident took place and not to Metro. Since Metro is not being funded by such incidents, the argument about the amount of force necessary to make sure a payment is made is not persuasive.
Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld states people across demographic boundaries feel a sense of injustice that some people flout the rules and ride free, while others pay. “It’s a fairness issue, across the entire community,” Wiedefeld said. “You have people in those same communities that they’re concerned about being targeted, who are paying their fares. And I think it’s right that everybody pay their fare.” Wiedefeld made a good point but ignored the bigger picture. Citations and arrests for fare jumping can severely impact low-income individuals and neighborhoods of color. No one knows another person’s financial situation but they may be dependent on the “free” bus trip for sanctuary. If all fare’s were free then the argument regarding how many individuals pay their fare would not matter.
WMATA’s recently completed Capital Needs Inventory (CNI)provides extensive detail of their infrastructure needs and the associated costs, which total approximately $25 billion, $15.5 billion of which are related to the safety and reliability of the system. Metro wants additional funding of $500 million each year that can be leveraged or used to issue bonds of high credit.
The D.C. Council has already raised the tax on ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. As reported by Faiz Siddiqui, of Washington Post, the goal being to raise 178.5 million in new funding for metro.
Public transportation is free in Belgium, Thailand, Estonia, Brazil, Poland, Miami, Baltimore, Boston, etc. As a public necessity, some believe it should be free in the District of Columbia as well.
The District of Columbia is an expensive city to live in. The cost of living is ranked 21 out of 538 cities in the world. The average salary is $71,081 but the cost of living is 39.3% higher than the national average. Therefore, a D.C. resident needs to earn $80,273 to live comfortably. Financial struggles over transportation add another burden on commutes to work or school.
If public transportation were free then the economy will save money on gas, reduce asthma and other illnesses linked to automobile generated pollution. If there were more travel options to urban areas it would generate more efficient labor markets and a rise in business opportunities by making it easier for poor people to get to jobs.
In order for public transportation to be free we would need a systematic plan. Erik Olin Wright, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin has one. According to Wright,the key is to scale an already-subsidized industry with select free-fare groups into a system-wide program free to all. “Of course public transportation has to be paid for,” writes Wright, “but it should not be paid for through the purchase of tickets by individual riders—it should be paid for by society as a whole through the one mechanism we have available for this, taxation.” Public transportation shouldn’t be looked at just from an angle of reducing traffic and emissions. The right to public transit should not be seen as a behavioral mechanism, but instead a right available for all citizens.
During the summer of 2018, the National Park Service approved an application for a group of white nationalists who planned to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Led by prominent white supremacist Jason Kessler, lead organizer of the original Unite The Right rally, the gathering, known as Unite The Right 2, took place in Washington, DC. Starting the march from the Foggy Bottom Metro station, participants eventually made their way to Lafayette Square, the park across the street from the White House.
In outrage, a number of community members and activists banded together to organize a counter-protest of the far-right demonstration. With Black Lives Matter DC as the lead organizers, the Rise Up Fight Back Counter-Protest took place alongside the Unite The Right 2 rally.
With DC-based Black activists such as Black Lives Matter DC’s Makia Green, Institute for Policy Studies Fellow Khury Peterson-Smith and Reverend Graylan Hagler from the Plymouth Congregational Church taking the stage to speak on the importance of community involvement and grass-tops accountability.
A story we’ve been covering about tenants in Congress Heights who have been rallying against slum conditions in their apartment untis for the past five years received a huge win in their campaign this past July when Judge John Mott ordered CityPartners, a real estate firm based in Adams Morgan, to pay nearly $900,000 to finance repairs to the dilapidated buildings.
Read the full article of the win on CityPaper here, and to receive more information about how to support their campaign follow Justice First’s newsletter here.
The first Tuesday of August, neighbors of communities from all fifty states take part in the National Night Out. Local police departments host block parties, festivals and other community activities. According to the event website, “National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, more caring places to live.”
However, this cause is implausible when agencies fail to provide officers with policy guidance, hold officers accountable for misconduct and collect data about officer’s activities. Most problems arise when police patrol under-resourced neighborhoods. Patrolling is supposed to keep people safe but in reality patrolling forces residents to give up their rights and lose their sense of security within public and personal spaces. Policing is flawed because it profits from stopping, searching, ticketing, arresting and incarcerating people.
The District of Columbia is the capitol of the United States. Despite being the capitol, DC is not funded as it should be given its stature in America. Issues like food deserts, medical assistance, affordable housing, education funding and a poor infrastructure are serious problems for District residents. These topics all deal with public safety as they correspond to resident stability. A Night Out for Safety and Liberation is a community-driven alternative to the National Night Out. The event aims to create new understanding of public safety. Join us for:
Night Out for Safety and Liberation
Tuesday, August 7
5pm – 9pm
Maroon House
1005 Rhode Island Avenue NE
Goals such as building connections with neighbors, ending mass incarceration and ending for-profit bail are designed to help community members re-imagine what public safety is. This event is aimed at giving power to the community and showing that we have a right to govern ourselves. We as a community should be able to depend on one another, lend a helping hand, tutor the mis-educated and defuse potentially violent situations. Equity, equality and power are the goals for redefining a community. Fear, prosecution and conflict should not be the main reactions to situations in the neighborhood. Instead, we should give power back to the community by shedding light on existing community resources and the variety of options available for achieving public safety.
On July 12, 2016, the D.C. Council passed the Incarceration to Incorporation Entrepreneurship Program (IIEP), DC Law 21-159. The IIEP would provide entrepreneurship opportunities for returning citizens such as a General Equivalency Diploma program; college courses in entrepreneurship; apprenticeship training; leadership and character development; financial literacy instruction; and the availability of access to capital.
The IIEP is a successful model of entrepreneurship. Similar programs regularly change the lives of returning citizens. For example, Raising Tide Capital helps individuals start and grow businesses; Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP) strives to promote innovation through career development, education, and mentoring, and Defy Ventures supports employment, entrepreneurship and personal and leadership development. For more information about the Incarceration to Incorporation Program, go to our website, www.coalition159.com.
Despite the bill passing unanimously by the council, the Mayor refused to fund the measure in her last two budgets with the council following suit. This year, myself and the other members of Coalition 159, who’ve been fighting to get this bill passed and funded, felt confident that the council would fund the program this year. Both Councilmember Elissa Silverman, chair of the Labor and Workforce Development Committee and Kenyan McDuffie, chair of the Committee on Business and Economic Development, had expressed support, leading us to believe that they would do what they could to fund the program. Unfortunately, we were wrong.
As this legislation was being voted on in the committee, Councilmember Silverman expressed, “I really think this entrepreneurship program is a creative approach …. I think we as a District government need to think of all the ways in which we can engage our returning citizens. … I think this is a bill that will take a first step toward looking at how we address the entrepreneurship issue, ….”
Councilmember McDuffie, who chairs the Committee on Business and Economic Development, said during his April 11, 2018 hearing, “I think there are far too many returning citizens who lack opportunities in traditional employment. But I’d like to think there are some things the city can do more of around entrepreneurship for people who are returning from periods of incarceration.” Furthermore, he expressed that, “if you look at $14.5 billion total budget, $100,000 in a year, is a fraction of what we should be investing to try to help these people successfully integrate.”
The one-hundred million plus $50,000 was the funding the Mayor budget for the Aspire to Entrepreneurship program. What’s more, Coalition 159 developed budget estimates for how much the IIEP would cost over four years that were 55% and 65% lower than the council’s $4.7 million financial impact of the IIEP. Despite this and despite the praise for our program, there was still no consideration for start-up funding.
In Silverman’s committee hearing on April 18, instead of addressing why her position had seemingly changed with respect to the IIEP, she suggested I contact the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) because they supposedly had money available to fund entrepreneurship for returning citizens. To the contrary, Councilmember Robert White shared that “that funding did not have an impact on IIEP”. But, even if we were to have received outside funding, which we had been pursuing, we still would’ve needed additional start-up funding from the government. Ms. Silverman apparently didn’t seek to identify any funding for the IIEP nor mention any coalition testimony in her committee’s report. For example, in the committee’s 2018 report, it mentioned “finding ways to assist returning citizens reenter the workforce and find employment that gives them access to a reliable career path is one of the most important issues in workforce development on the District.”
We even appeared before the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety in hopes that chairperson Charles Allen would have brought that “new sense of urgency and creativity” he talked about “to how we support returning citizens get their feet on the ground.” Unfortunately, we didn’t see that sense of urgency from him as it relates to the IIEP in this budget cycle nor the last.
Since the IIEP was passed without funding for the second fiscal year, it’s subject to repeal in Fiscal Year 2020. We wonder why the mayor, nor the council has showed any sincere interest in funding this highly successful program model of entrepreneurship for returning citizens.
At the April 28 hearing, former director of Court Services and Offender Supervisor Agency (CSOSA), Nancy Ware, testified in support of the IIEP. Ms. Ware said that she’s witnessed the success that opportunities for self-sufficiency offered individuals to become productive tax paying citizens of the city. There was a substantial decline in the percentages of individuals revoked to incarceration, an increase in the successful completion of supervision, and decreased rearrest rates”
We must ask ourselves, why did the council vote unanimously to approve the IIEP legislation but not make funding it a priority? Is it because we already have the Aspire program? Or is it because the IIEP has the potential to generate $10 million dollars in the operation of an entrepreneurship program in which returning citizens would primarily benefit? I surmise that the answer is the same as why the Mayor’s Office of Returning Citizen Affairs (MORCA) has be so terribly underfunded and understaffed since as far back as 2015. The Mayor’s budget doesn’t truly reflect the needs of returning citizen as a priority of her administration.
We believe returning citizens should be a priority in the District because, “on average, half of the men and women who come under the criminal justice system in DC are unemployed at any given time ….” Even more so, according to Ms. Ware, “those who are unemployed, slightly more than half of them are actually employable.” Obviously, it’s more beneficial to employ our residents because crime generates substantial costs to society. Programs that directly or indirectly prevent crime can generate substantial economic benefits by reducing crime-related costs incurred by victims, communities, and the criminal justice system. Moreover, programs like RTC, Defy and potentially IIEP, yield high return on investment through low recidivism rates; job creation; increased income; and businesses launched with high survival rates.
I believe we have an opportunity to change the course of this city in this election for the better. But you must educate yourself and vote. I was at a Returning Citizens forum and heard a candidate say, “… and I’d fund the Incarceration to Incorporation Entrepreneurship Program (IIEP).” These processes should ensure that the right questions are asked as it pertains to the IIEP. In other words, why have those who’ve been on the council the last two years, and voted unanimously to pass the IIEP, failed to fund the program? And, since the law is to be repealed in the third year after enactment, what are the candidates plans to ensure it is funded and not repealed next year?
We’ve encouraged our supporters to intensify their efforts until the council records their final vote on the budget. In other words, it’s not over till it’s over. This year, it’s truly not over till it’s over. On June 19th D.C. voters will select nominees for council chairman, two at-large council seats and four ward level council seats. Many of the current council, including McDuffie, Silverman and Charles Allen, will have their seats challenged. Some of those challengers, like candidate for chairman Ed Lazere, support funding the IIEP. Before you vote, The Coalition engages you to research the candidates and ensure your vote is for someone who will truly champion legislation for your communities.
You can exercise your vote to select those who you believe will alter the direction of the budget process in FY2020 to fund those priorities our communities feel provide a real “fair shot” for them. Remember, it’s not over till you say it’s over with your vote.
Kevin Smith is an advocate for returning citizens. In his recent efforts to get funding for the IIEP, he coordinated advocacy for the Working Coalition to Fund the IIEP. His views expressed here are his own and doesn’t reflect any members or supporters of the Working Coalition.
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