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Abstract: A 76-year-old grandmother is sent back to prison because she didn't answer her phone during a two­ hour computer class. A teenager is sentenced to three months of incarceration because she called the judge a bad name. A single mother of two young kids was jailed for contempt for crying too "loudly" outside the courtroom after being told that she had arrived too late in the day to get an emergency PTO against her abuser: the unrepentant judge said the woman "has no decorum or respect for the courts."

People—particularly already marginalized low-income, people of color, trans/gender-non­ conforming people, and juveniles— are frequently punished for “a failure to obey.” They are punished for things that are not crimes, harmful to others, a risk to society, or usually even moral wrongs. And it’s not uncommon: almost one-quarter of incarcerated adults in NYS and over a quarter of youth jailed nationwide are there on technical violations or status offenses, even as other rates of incarceration have decreased significantly,

Nonetheless, this type of harsh state discipline remains largely hidden and unexamined, particularly by legal scholars. My aims here are to: 1. Set out a typology of these kinds of cases through four stages of system involvement (police, court appearances, technical probation and parole violations, and active incarceration); 2. Bring more attention to the issue; 3. Demonstrate how the typology of the punishments for these 'crimes' impede down-sizing and other reform; 4. Offer Solutions.

Professor Cynthia Godsoe teaches courses in family law, criminal law, children and the law, professional responsibility and public interest lawyering. She is the Director of the Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Law Fellowship and the Marsha Garrison Family Law and Policy Fellowship programs at Brooklyn Law School. 

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The CJR Workshop Series offers a virtual forum for academics to share criminal justice works-in-progress with an audience of academics and practitioners. Seats are limited so registration is required.