In the American Prospect, Kat Aaron writes a mesmerizing story about Detroit's 36th District Court. It's a case study in a system that is definitely not trauma-informed. Well worth a read.
A few years ago, I saw a man try to fight a debt-collection company that was garnishing his wages. He was an elderly African American, and he came to court wearing a worn uniform from a maintenance company. He didn’t have a lawyer. He had managed to file forms contesting the garnishment. In court, he said he had never incurred the debt and, in fact, had no idea what the debt was, so he didn’t owe the money. The judge told him that in order to make that argument, he would have had to contest the underlying debt, not the garnishment itself. The judge didn’t tell him how to do that, though. She didn’t make any effort to get to the truth of the matter, moving forward with the case despite the possibility that the collections agency had the wrong man. While the judge was talking, the defendant kept muttering under his breath. I was in the second row, close enough to hear him, and he was saying, “I’m so lost. I’m so lost.”
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