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[Music] the police came to our house on Tuesday I never received the eviction notice we came in and I explained the situation they offered him 90 days in jail because I fail you to vacate it it's unconstitutional it's a hard life for renters in Arkansas it's the only state in America with no implied warranty of habitability or in other words landlords are not required to make repairs or maintain their properties perhaps more radical it's the only state where you can be prosecuted fined and jailed for not paying rent on time every year more than two thousand people are charged under Arkansas is failure to vacate low Dustin Duke is a legal aid attorney he specializes in representing tenants in failure to vacate cases failure to vacate has passed at the beginning of the last century the quest of landlords is a easy cheap method to dispossessed tenants of their property with really minimal effort on the landlord's part because the state is is taking over that role for them if a tenant is even a day late on rent the landlord can begin the eviction process tenants are given only ten days to vacate the property a conviction can carry a fine up to a hundred dollars for each day the tenant remains in the property and up to 90 days in jail it just it's just black and white is your rent due yes or no did you pay the rent if the answer is no and you haven't gotten out in 10 days then you can be convicted under the statute it's a crime this makes things difficult for the third of Arkansas's residents who are renters and have legitimate concerns about the properties they're occupying tenants are required to pay rent even if their landlords aren't maintaining their properties Arkansas is the second poorest state in America and 18% of the population that lived below the poverty line are now being swept up into the criminal justice system Kim Barnes was evicted for being late on rent they actually fingerprinted me and took a motion like I was a criminal I said out of this just cause a failure to vacate Barnes claimed she'd paid the rent on time but the landlord refused to take her payment with me in my situation I'm gonna make sure my kids have a roof over they hated that rent gonna be the first thing I pay out I had proof that I had the the money order she just wanted us out under Arkansas is criminal eviction statute Burns was given 10 days to move despite claiming she moved before the time period ended her landlord pressed charges for failure to vacate I hit re boom once I got my visa notice and she wouldn't work with us we just said okay we'll move and then I had to go to court today he asked me how do I plead on fare to vacate and I said not guilty because I mean I'm not guilty because I was out of this woman's place in reasonable time like she asked me to be after she still when they sent my payment I have to go back in April hoped about it I have all my paperwork showing what dates I did exactly move out challenging a criminal eviction is tricky if a tenant like Barnes wants to plead not guilty and take their case to trial they first have to pay the full amount of rent that the landlord claims they owe in to the court so there's a real incentive there for the tentative just to leave to get out of the premises and especially considering that they're now facing a crime most the time it's just the matter of the tenant getting out and you might say well what's wrong with that if they owe money maybe they should get out but the problem is the way the system is set up it allows landlords to abuse the system the tenant very rarely is a chance to give their side of the story you might be withholding the rent because landlord promised to make repairs you never get to raise those claims of course because this isn't a civil matter you don't get to raise counterclaims in a criminal lawsuit well let's just assume that it's just a straight-up non-payment of rent case even then you got a question the wisdom of deciding in this particular case that the state wants to pick up the tab the state of Arkansas bears the cost of deploying members of law enforcement to serve evictions and providing prosecutors for court proceedings it only cost the landlords as a small processing fee that is good news for landlords and their representatives Jason Baldwin is a real estate attorney in a landlord with more than 60 properties the criminal method is not as radical as it may seem I've been handling hundreds of evictions over the years I've never once seen a tenant ever serve a day in jail due to the criminal eviction statute that would say 90% of all evictions in Arkansas use the criminal method it's fairly simple and easy and inexpensive if the tenant is staying in your property and not paying the rent essentially the tenants allowed to steal from you it's a crime akin to a parking ticket you park at the meter you don't put any money in to that meter well then you can be ticketed I don't live in my car maybe the people who are comparing it to a parking ticket do live in their cars but this is somebody's home that's that's being taken away from them and their conduct is being criminalized tenants are sometimes jailed under this statute currently the data on the number of tenants jailed in cases related to Arkansas as criminal eviction statute is not available to the public in fact much of the information available about the reality of landlord tenant relations in Arkansas has not come from the state but from legal researchers like Lynn foster with the landlord tenant situation you have kind of the poorest segments of our society being penalized for this behavior which in every other state is not criminal behavior I think that's one reason why nothing much has been done and not much attention has been focused on it in 2011 foster joined a state assembled commission of tenant advocates industry groups lawyers and judges to recommend modifications to Arkansas as landlord-tenant law their report released in the winter of 2012 recommended repealing failure to vacate what the Commission recommended unanimously was that a better civilization statute be put into place then the failure to vacate statute should be repealed by the legislature the commission's recommendations were approved by representatives of all parties most importantly tenants rights advocates in both major associations representing landlords and realtors but implementing the recommendations have approved daunting my initial thought when I received the commission's recommendations was that we might be able to turn that into legislation and try to get something passed during the session that we were currently in it became clear to us pretty quickly that the Realtors and the landlord's were very vehemently against this issue and would lobby hard against it I don't think I expected that kind of opposition to happen so quickly and so strongly it seemed like the recommendations were the result of consensus the Arkansas Realtors Association proved to have an influential lobby they circulated a letter around the legislature in opposition to the commission's recommendations after that few lawmakers would consider the proposed changes in a letter to their membership the Association celebrated that they had stopped the bill it mentioned that they had fought legislation intended to fundamentally change landlord tenant practices in Arkansas and that the municipal eviction process would have been eliminated and warranty of habitability imposed in other words evictions in Arkansas can no longer be criminalized and landlords would be required under the law like the rest of the United States to maintain their properties after repeated requests for an interview or a statement the Arkansas Realtors Association refused to comment there is at least one very very powerful Lobby that works on behalf of folks who are landlords and tenants do not have any correspondingly powerful lobby on the other hand of course if you're counting votes there are more tenants in Arkansas then there are landlords about a third of all our Kansans are tenants so the numbers would be on the tenants side the money may be on the landlord's side lawmakers in Arkansas meet only for a few months every two years to pass legislation the failure to vacate law won't be debated again until 2015 it's embarrassing for Arkansas to be an outlier in this way to use law enforcement to enforce a private contract is pretty unheard of we don't have debtor prisons in the United States anymore it is not a violation of international rights rather it is simply a tool that allows people to cost effectively remove a tenant who is failing to pay the rent and admitting before a judge that they have refused to pay the rent and remained in the property when we're allocating resources are we really wanting to supplement their profits are we really trying to supplement the landlord's when we can use these resources for so many other things are so much better the tenant they're intimidated by the process they don't have lawyers most of the time and they're facing not only the the prospect of owing a lot of money but even the possibility of jail time things come up kids you see parents can see you you see and stop trying to bring in cops into did really not every day Baker concerns is the streets [Music] you