Jailed for not paying a traffic fine? Critics say Miami-Dade policy unfair to poor

Rev. Benjamin Downs now lives comfortably in West Perrine where he pastors a church and leads a security company but he was once a 22-year-old married father of two struggling to cover his family’s bills on his construction worker income.

To keep his young family afloat, he had to make a choice: pay the rent or pay for car insurance. He chose the former. That choice had a snowball effect that would eventually land him in jail.

“I elected to pay my rent and not having car insurance, I was not able to renew my tags or anything of that nature. This led to me getting tickets for suspended tags and then eventually a suspended driver’s license.”

Downs’ experience highlights a long-running and pervasive problem, particularly for low-income residents. According to a 2022 Driver License Task Force Final Report , thousands of people have their driver licenses suspended every year. But the majority of those suspensions weren’t for drunk driving, excessive speeding or any sort of dangerous behavior behind the wheel. Most were for offenses that had nothing to with safety, things like failing to pay a fine or failing to appear for a court hearing on a ticket .

Arguing that the county’s license suspension policies amount to the “criminalization of poverty,” a group of community leaders is campaigning for changes they say could potentially keep thousands of people from going to jail every year. They want such non-safety-related offenses turned into civil citations rather than offenses subject to arrest and jail.

A small group of protesters chanting “Reduce Arrests!” and carrying over 700 letters of support gathered in the spring outside the office of Miami-Dade State Attorney Kathy Fernandez Rundle urging her to sign off on an agreement that would pave the the way for changing how police departments enforce such offenses.

Father Chanel Jeanty of St. James Catholic Church, co-president of a group called People Acting for Community Together , led a prayer before criticizing a system that the group believes issues severe punishments for minor offenses, often with life-altering consequences. Jail can cost people jobs, relationships and strain the fabric of already-struggling families.

“Thousands of people are arrested not because they are reckless drivers and dangerous on the roads,” Jeanty said during the protest. “But because they are poor and can’t afford to pay the escalating fines and fees that the system imposes on them.”

Rundle later sent a letter to the group expressing her support for civil citations for certain driver’s license charges — but the details remain to be ironed out, including how many police departments will agree to the program and when changes might take place .

PACT leading the charge

The leader of the campaign has been PACT. The nonprofit interfaith group, made up of 40 churches, synagogues and mosques, has made it an annual mission to push Miami-Dade public officials to implement plans the group draws up to address Miami’s most pressing social issues.

One member of a PACT congregation has had personal experience with the issue.

Isaiah is a 62-year-old Cuban native and member of Coral Gables United Church of Christ. He did not want to be identified by his last name. In March 2023, Isaiah, who works as a construction project manager, said that while visiting a work site, a police officer approached him and asked for his identification. He obliged but was surprised when the officer came back threatening to arrest him for having a suspended license.

Isaiah said he tried to explain that he renewed his license last year, as he always does, so he didn’t understand how his license could be suspended. He said the officer wouldn’t hear it.

“He’s so agitated. I thought I had ran over a puppy or someone in a wheelchair.”

The officer asked where he was headed and Isaiah said he was going back to his office, which was only five blocks away. After pondering for a few seconds, the officer directed Isaiah to go to work but leave his car there. If he tried to drive home, the officer threatened to arrest him.

He followed the officer’s commands and later found out that his license had been suspended because his proof of insurance was not properly recognized during the renewal process. He’s still not sure if this was a system error, or if he or his insurance provider failed to properly report the information. The ordeal left him frazzled and confused.

“When I joined PACT, I was like, wow, so it’s not just me? It’s happened to a lot of people.”

Slow pace of change

The suspension penalty has been on PACT’s radar for years. On April 15, PACT again raised the issue of people being jailed for suspended licenses during its annual forum, called a “Nehemiah Action Assembly.” Named after the Old Testament book of Nehemiah, the forum invites political leaders to appear in front of constituents while PACT presents them with proposed solutions to social issues, like affordable housing and criminal justice reform. The forum is unique for the response from members. If leaders agreed to sign off on PACT’s proposals, they’re met with the organization’s signature chorus, “Let Justice Roll!” If they don’t, silence is the response.

PACT invited stakeholders from Miami-Dade’s Driver License Suspension Task Force Committee . Created in 2020 because of the huge number of people impacted, the task force is supposed to investigate policies and practices to reduce suspensions caused by non-payment of fees and fines. Members also are supposed to look for methods to make it easier for residents to pay what they owe.

The task force includes representatives from the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court, the Florida State Senate, the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners, the Miami-Dade County Association of Chiefs of Police, the Clerk of Courts for Miami-Dade County, the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.

Fernandez Rundle, who has attended past PACT forums, did not show for that one. In an interview with the Herald, Jonathan Sepsenwol, PACT’s vice-president and a member of Temple Beth Shalom, said Rundle had long been a supporter of civil citations. Her office launched Florida’s first civil citation program in 2007. The program affords police officers the discretion to issue civil citations in lieu of arrests for certain specified crimes.

But he said the group was disappointed that the state attorney had been slow to officially sign off on expanding the civil citation program to include non-safety related driving offenses, like the suspension of a driver’s license for the nonpayment of a fine.

PACT did get one big yes. Stephanie Daniels – Miami-Dade Police Department’s first female directo r – committed to train her department to use the driver’s license citation program for non dangerous driving offenses, once it’s implemented.

On May 31, a few weeks after the protest outside her office, Rundle sent a letter to PACT expressing her support of issuing civil citations for certain driver’s license charges and defending her office’s response.

“I expressed support for extending this program to include certain driver’s license offenses, including driving on a license suspended for failure to pay or appear, in a 2021 email to various justice partners before the recommendations made by the Driver’s License Task Force were even finalized in 2022,” the letter read.

She also noted that she helped author the memorandum of understanding for the task force — an agreement that would outline the intentions and expectations of the stakeholders. But the details of the agreement are still being ironed out and will likely be discussed during the next task force committee meeting on July 25.

Severe consequences

The impact of so many suspensions extends beyond individual drivers and the county line. Florida’s economy, as a whole, suffers from debt-based driver’s license suspensions, according to a 2023 Fines and Fees Justice Center Report . The report showed that these suspensions cost the Florida economy nearly $500 million in consumer spending annually.

Analyzing county-level data from across the state, the report found that suspending someone’s driver’s license when they cannot pay a fine or fee is worsening the statewide labor shortage, with jobs in trucking, construction, and hospitality going unfulfilled.

Furthermore, according to the report, suspending driver’s licenses for unpaid fees and fines does not improve public safety, but rather diverts public safety resources from dangerous driving and serious crimes.

But the biggest impact is clearly on individuals.

At the PACT forum, Downs was among those who recounted about the he wound up in jail.

Suspended license or not, Downs was struggling to pay bills and said he still had to drive to work so he could support his young family. On his work route, he said he was pulled over repeatedly. Since he had expired tags, no car insurance, and a suspended license, each stop came with multiple tickets. One stop came with a court date in which the court assessed Downs’ fees and put him on a payment plan. Still struggling to make ends meet, his check for the final payment bounced, leading to another court date.

This time, however, Downs said he never received notice of any court date so he didn’t show up. During yet another police stop, an officer told him that he had a bench warrant.

“I was freaked out because I’m a novice to all this so I didn’t know what that means.”

After being told that there was a warrant for his arrest, Downs’ parents drove him to the police station and he immediately turned himself in.

Downs mistakenly thought he could just pay the fine and go. Instead, officers told him that since he had a warrant, they had to book him, arrest him and take his mugshot.

Downs was released from jail shortly thereafter, leaving with a misdemeanor. Though the jail stint was brief its effects lasted longer. The misdemeanor left a stain on his record and he’s written letters to subsequent employers to explain what happened.

“Just to make sure they know I’m not a criminal because, you know, if you’re a criminal you can’t hold certain jobs,” he said during an interview with the Herald. “My situation was something involving a license and not something that caused harm to people.”

This story was produced with financial support from the Esserman Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.