Tony Messenger spent years traveling across Missouri, uncovering the stories of people affected by court fees and fines--work that he calls "the most important work I have ever produced as a journalist." That work, which earned him the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, ultimately resulted in Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice, a timely and important revelation of "a national crisis hidden in plain sight."

Messenger's work lies at the "intersection of poverty and criminal justice," drawing deeply on the experiences of three single mothers--and a multitude of other individual stories in passing--to illustrate how the 21st-century justice system has evolved to become a money-making scheme, often "shouldered by the most vulnerable among us." Through court fees and fines, as well as pay-to-stay bills ("board bills") charged in many states for time spent in jail, the system generates income to support itself, "money earmarked by lawmakers as a backdoor tax" and funneled into municipal budgets, sheriff retirement funds, judge and clerk salaries and more. Messenger posits that more than 80% of the cases that go through the court system are for misdemeanor charges, not violent crimes that put the public at risk. And as the vast majority of those paying into the system are living below the federal poverty line, "this debt becomes an accelerant, and the inability to pay means more jail time and additional contact with the criminal justice system that feels more like purgatory than an institution defined by fairness and the rule of law."

Like any good journalist, Messenger grounds relevant data and theory of a broken system in the experiences of those who interact with it, individuals he has met and stayed close to over years and years of their justice troubles--like Brooke Bergen, arrested for the alleged theft of an $8 tube of mascara, which ultimately resulted in a court bill of some $15,000. With each case like Bergen's, Messenger drives home the point: this is the criminalization of poverty in action, creating modern-day debtors' prisons that run counter to the principles of the U.S. Constitution and repeatedly lock up individuals for their inability to pay the self-perpetuating debts that courts place upon them. It's "an American epidemic... [a] tragic cycle of profit and abuse" that should enrage anyone who comes to understand it--and Profit and Punishment is the perfect place to start that understanding. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

Shelf Talker: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Messenger explores how poverty is criminalized in the United States, grounding data and facts in the stories of those most affected by these policies.

Profit an Punishment is a fascinating examination of the court system, court fees, and how the cycle of poverty plays in to this. Tony Messenger wrote editorial columns highlighting the plight of several impoverished, Missourians who were stuck in a cycle and tangle of poverty, the law, and the court system. His columns caught the attention of many people. other people stuck in the same system, lawmakers, and politicians. He helped bring to light issues that thousands of people across the country are facing, and helped make change happen.

As an average American citizen, I have assumed many things about our judicial system. However, I never realized that extent to which the judicial system preys on poor people, both Black and white. Messenger brings up the issues of racial inequities throughout his book, but really this book is about white Americans who are struggling in a system that is assumed to prop them up.

I learned a helluva lot from this book, and if I were ever to teach a social justice class, I would use parts of this book. Hell, I want to share parts of this book with my low-income students to show them about the realities of living in America.

I highly recommend this book. Well researched, well written. Nicely done!

Tony Messenger's "Profit and Punishment" is a nonfiction work about the cycle of punishment, incarceration, fines, and endless court appearances that essentially rob people of any chance of overcoming past mistakes, large or small. As Messenger highlight, the focus of the book is on white people in rural areas of Missouri, which are the parts of the state that rely most heavily on money obtained through punishment to obtain funds for courts, sheriffs, and police. Urban areas have a different funding system and are also more lenient toward enforcing the collections of fines and debts owed by the mostly poor people who are subjected to the criminal justice system. One shining light of this book is that Messenger's journalism brings more public attention to the way that people are buried by the fines that they owe and the near impossibility of any positive outcome. Still, convincing legislatures to make any permanent changes to the laws that control this cycle of punishment is easier said than done, especially when this is the main source of funding for rural areas. "Profit and Punishment" is an important read about an often overlooked issue.