What if "justice" isn't a scale... but a machine? And what if the machine doesn't break down by accident. What if it's working exactly as designed? For some people. Not all. In Guilty By Design, you're invited inside the American injustice system-the one that says "equal under the law" while quietly billing the poor for being poor. - A traffic stop that becomes a court date. - A court date that becomes a fee. - A fee that becomes a warrant. - A warrant that becomes a jail cell. And suddenly the question isn't, "Did you do it?" It's, "Can you pay?" In this book, Dr. Heath Hollensbe shines a steady light on the everyday mechanics of punishment-by-paperwork: cash bail, court costs, probation schedules, fines, fees, plea deals, overwhelmed public defenders, and a culture of protection that keeps the system from ever having to admit what it's doing.