To: Judges of the Magisterial District Court of Berks County, Pennsylvania
End Imprisonment of Impoverished Mothers of Truant Students
We the undersigned citizens of Berks County were deeply disheartened by the needless death of Eileen Dinino last June 7, the widow imprisoned for being unable to pay the truancy fines imposed on two of her sons by the Berks County authorities.
We recognize that current County policy gives the Courts inadequate flexibility to deal constructively with cases like Mrs. Dinino's but we realize as well that imprisonment of a parent is an ineffective, costly and counterproductive answer to the problem. In the Dinino case, the policy caused the worst possible outcome for Ms. Dinino and her children.
We were heartened when constructive legislative remedies were proposed in Harrisburg, substituting education-based and community service solutions for imprisonment of people too poor to pay fines, but the bills are now stalled and unlikely even to be debated before 2015.
Therefore, we call upon the Courts of Berks County to declare a moratorium on imprisonment of parents and guardians who cannot pay truancy fines, pending adoption of cost-effective legislation to address truancy. At the very least, we owe this to the memory of Eileen Dinino.
Why is this important?
Berks County residents, alarmed by the in-prison death a widowed mother of seven, discovered that the Court system's policy is to jail the parents of truant children if they cannot pay the children's truancy fines. Concerned citizens who had been unaware of the policy until the woman's death was reported, and who found that corrective legislation was moribund in Harrisburg, concluded that only the force of organized public opinion could foster a change in policy. For that reason, they decided to draft and promote this Petition.