The return of Debtors Prisons to the USA.

Eventually we will see bountys paid to Law enforcement for keeping the prison industry running by arresting people.

Corporate fascism at it's finest.

It's just a matter of time....

Okay, this almost seems like two different stories here. Really two very different causes, with one I'm mixed on and one it seems is an outright Constitutional issue on two distinct grounds.

Now I'm mixed on people going to jail for fines and restitution type debts they owe to the Court. I've been on the victim side of people doing things they didn't get away with and I've got absolutely no sympathy if restitution or court costs can't be met. (One shouldn't have keyed my car and the other should learn what assault vs. battery actually is for a difference.)

The other side of it though....Looking at the chart linked in the OP....Umm, Okay, court costs? Nothing new there and someone stealing an apple from Washington probably got to pay a penny for their trouble to everyone to beat senseless. I can even see charging for room and board. Why exactly SHOULD jail be "3 hots and a cot" as if it's a free hotel? Thats MY tax money paid very directly at a level I can feel it, to my county, to support those in our jail. Some don't deserve to be there....MOST very likely do, IMO.

So, I'm still not getting to the problem until....."Public Defender". Hey.. Umm.. WOO-HOO!!! Government people!! Has anyone ever heard the Miranda warning? I know..it's so rare to hear spoken loud, I'll post for a reminder... lol

Explanation of rights that must be given before any custodial interrogation, stemming largely from the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The person detained and interrogated must be made aware of the right to remain silent, the right to consult with an attorney and have the attorney present during questioning, and the right to have an attorney appointed if indigent.

Source

and Indigent has an explanation in this context, all it's own.

Impoverished, or unable to afford the necessities of life. A defendant who is indigent has a constitutional right to court-appointed representation, according to a 1963 Supreme Court decision, Gideon v. Wainright.
Definition provided by Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary.

Source

Now.. Pray tell.. What part isn't that violating to back-bill for a public defender??? Did that mean a right to court appointed (* to be paid back at interest if you ever ever ever make more of yourself than you are now!) with fine print? Hmm... I missed that 'pay it back some day' clause. It's a RIGHT, to my knowledge. A right to balance the unlimited resources of the State to fight against someone. Not a Buy now - Pay later privilege.

If society is THAT broke? Fine....Every single person working in city and county Government should make no MORE than the high end of average for the overall community they serve in.....THEN maybe talk about cutting legal representation to the poor or making them pay for it somehow. How cruel!

What happens if you bounce the check too many times? Do you get a defender for that or do they get told sorry?

Oh the second Constitutional thing is double punishment for the same offense. How many ways and creative means are they going to bleed a guy for the same single original act? A simple bar fight is getting to be a sort of life sentence for the contact it can bring in what never ends afterward.

I just want to say that a lot of these cases are criminal court and family court , but
Are there any cival cases where people went to jail?


The key here is there is a loop hole in the system , that loop hole ......
Is "contempt of court"

So if you owe money they make anh order where u have to pay it back by such date and
An amount bi weekly or monthly.

If you fail to do so then they use the contemp of court to throw you in jail. "Loop hole"


I have heard so many people worried about going to jail for fines they can't pay
I always tell them just pay $5 and you can't be put in jail. ...
I know this because I did it, and when I had a court review hearing because my
Due date for my fines wasn't paid in full, when in court I got some cocky comments about my little
payments, but the judge adds another order( but thankfully no court costs)

Now dont make any attempt by either going to court any day of the week or making a small payment,
then you will see jail

Now any judge who would throw you in jail on the spot because you didn't have money..
The judge should be jailed!

If your prison population already wasn't a embarrassment of the civilized world!

Land of the fre.......Prisons home of the jailed.

What makes this even worse is the fact that a person could end up in this situation without doing ANYTHING wrong or illegal. On numerous occasions innocent people are wrongly charged. I thought the US legal system was about Justice! There is a difference between true Justice and the justice of the US court system.

Wrabbit you emphasized the wrong word imo. Most people do deserve to be in jail, but SOME don't. That should be more important imo. If you were that one person out of 50 sitting in jail staring at a wall all day while you're life and sanity slowly slip away, im sure you would feel differently. Jail is nothing short of hell to those who aren't institutionalized. Some are worse than others, ive been to a good one, and ive been to a god forsaken one that the town had petitioned to tear down on more than one occasion because of the conditions. All for a plant.

Anyways, yes the debtors prison thing is big. I had NO IDEA that it was even ever declared wrong or illegal. Ive seen lots of people go to jail because they're broke and cant pay their fines. I myself am within 500 dollars of paying off my 3k in fines and lost a job several months ago and just got a new one, and im afraid in a way because I could be put in jail before my first check comes in if the county so decides to do it. I don't refuse to pay, ive been paying religiously while working. I don't want to go back to jail. Im just broke.

While I was in jail last I was in a bunkhouse with 12 people and 4 of them were there for failure to pay. Although, these same people talked about how much meth they shot up on a daily basis as if it were in the Olympics and they were going for the gold.

It was insane. It was one of the biggest reasons I hated it, other than not being able to see my family since it was in a far off county, I hated being in there with nothing but tweakers. I live in Oklahoma, and 90% of the people in jail are there for meth. A sick bunch.

One of my biggest beefs with the legal system is this phrase, "You can beat the wrap but you wont beat the ride", which is a cops way of saying F you I don't care if you're innocent, ill take you to jail and you'll sit their for days, weeks, or months to prove it. I don't understand how they can seriously say "innocent until proven guilty", when you are sitting in jail!!! How innocent do you look when you're drug into court technically guilty of nothing yet but too poor to pay bail and you're wearing a prison jumpsuit and been sitting in jail for god knows how long.

Its all a god damn scam.. They tell you its YOUR tax money paying for it. So maybe people should be more critical of what YOUR money gets spent on. If it was strictly a tax payer funded non-profit system, we wouldn't have 1/10th of the prison population we have. NO ONE should be allowed to profit from someone elses suffering. When you go to jail for something minor, you will feel as if you've been kidnapped and held hostage, and the best part is the extortion is coming up next. All the rats who work in the legal system should be shot.

a reply to: HardCorps

the prison system has been hijacked to become modern slavery.
probably 2/3 of the people in prison would not be there in a truly civil society.
prison. industrial. complex.

If enough debtors shoot creditors, no debtors prisons.

Easy peasy.

a reply to: Bundy

You'll never hear me say the system we have isn't broken. One of the reasons I'm a bit hot and passionate about this issue is that here in Missouri the funding for Public Defense has fallen so badly it absolutely has, OPENLY compromised the system's ability to function.

a state supreme court decision in July 2012 gave the state public defender commission the authority to declare itself unavailable to accept new case assignments from the court when it already has too many. However, the state public defender’s attempts to define exactly how many cases are “too many” were met with significant scrutiny from criminal justice stakeholders – and in particular from the prosecuting attorneys association who called upon the legislature to do exactly what the new bill proposes.

Source: Mis souri Bar weighs in

It's a long story at source, but the bottom line is the system feeding the jails is being starved for being able to work properly. As the mechanic in the bad movie says 'There's yer problem!'... lol.. If the system worked to defend AND prosecute at the numbers people are being put into the system, less people who don't belong there, would end up there.

They also ought to make Jail meaningful for the concept of working off court debt if that's the issue. Like work around every county is there to be done...have prisoners do it. However, credit toward debt at a FAIR wage for the value. Hell, at least min. wage credit for full work days. That actually WOULD pay off court debts in time spent, within a reasonable time to consider it, eh?

Now it's just a punitive sick joke. I think of the Child Support system as the example there.

I guess the real question would be...

With a 17 trillion dollar national debt, would our congressional representatives and senators be wearing new orange jumpsuits?

With Obama's out of control spending, would he be shooting hoops behind a razor wire fence?

How about all the banks we supposedly bailed out in the market crash a few years back?

Has the auto industry paid their debts to society?

If the same rules do not apply to the ones we trust to represent us, then we are no longer on a peer level with these millionaire elitists.

It's simple prison rules, you have to go both ways...

a reply to: HardCorps

a reply to: oneupShadow

We have not had it both ways for a long time. The wealthy truly face a different set of laws and consequences than the rest of us peasants.

Debtors prisons will be an easy sell to the working class. Most of us peasants are gullible and are easily manipulated into voting against our own interests.

A friend of a friend recently went to prison. I heard his story and sat in amazement, not just at what he said but that he didn't realize the magnitude of what he said. The court gave him a fine and he couldn't pay so he went to jail (losing his job in the process). In jail he had to work, he got paid $1/hour working 48 hour weeks doing construction for local companies around town. He spent 6 months in jail. When it was over the ~$1200 he made was confiscated by the state to pay his fine that was conveniently the same wage. He got out and was actually happy the state let him work so he could pay off his fine.

He didn't realize when I pointed it out that they essentially took away his job, sentenced him to slavery, and left him with no ability to actually fix the problem that sent him to jail in the first place which was for non payment of child support (due to no funds). After the state took their money he was left with nothing (literally... clothes on his back homeless) and about 2 weeks to come up with a couple hundred dollars or he would go back to jail again.

This same process is how my town criminalized homelessness. If you get caught you're fined, if you can't pay the fine (which no one can) you goto jail. When you're released you're still homeless and get fined again.

I've actually brought this up at city council meetings, the response from both city officials and regular citizens in attendance is "Who cares? They're criminals."

Another inescapable debt I forgot to mention is student loan debt.

Will the cap and gown be traded for the ball and chain?

Aazadan makes a good point about slave labor being exploited. Child support is a huge problem in this country. An ex wife is angry, or that baby mama drama led you to a sexist courtroom. In an economy that no longer favors the common hard working man, where a man can no longer make an honest living swinging a hammer or working a factory line, the job market is struggling. A court ordered payment lands you in jail, and you are left with less than before.

My rural county has been hit hard since we are severely lacking industry here. A lot of honest construction workers have been backed up against the ropes and forced to grow and sell marijuana, just to keep food on the table.

I have always believed that you can judge a society by how it treats it's lowest members, and criminalizing homelessness is just inhumane.



a reply to: jrod

originally posted by: oneupShadow
My rural county has been hit hard since we are severely lacking industry here. A lot of honest construction workers have been backed up against the ropes and forced to grow and sell marijuana, just to keep food on the table.

I didn't come right out and say this but I hinted at it. This guy worked construction for local businesses. The local business was paying at or below minimum wage. The local business was buying labor that goes for the $10-$15/hour range on the market for $7.45/hour or less. It could have even been just the $1/hour the guy was pocketing. How is the honest hard working person supposed to compete with a slave wage? It can't be done, the honest person can't even legally accept a contract that pays so little if he were willing to take it.

By throwing this guy in jail they destroyed the job he was working, then by making him work for almost nothing in prison they took a job away from an honest person who has to charge more.

Honest people cannot compete with the prisoner economy. This forces those honest people to do less than legal things in order to afford to survive. Those people then goto jail and perpetuate the cycle.

If prisoners are going to work they HAVE to be paid a fair market wage, otherwise the honest person will lose their job to the cheaper prison labor.

originally posted by: rigel4
a reply to: HardCorps

16 trillion in debt... the US Government should get life...

17 trillion now...

originally posted by: VoidHawk
Why are people putting up with this!?

This isn't about locking up dangerous criminals, it could just as easily be anyone of us!!

People shouldn't just sit and moan about this, they should get active and complain very noisily! Get this into the main stream stressing it could be ANYONE!

Its ironic seeing as American keep waveing there 2nd amendment around saying its to stop precisly this.....erm no it seems it hasnt.

a reply to: HardCorps

I remember going to court to fight a traffic ticket. The other people there came in from jail. Most seemed like they were there because they didn't have money to pay the fine. It would honestly appear that the US justice system is based on that if you don't have enough money, you are going to go to jail for at least a long while.

The idea to punish people based on money is reprehensible. You are merely punishing the poor! The rich almost couldn't care less about a fine... to them its like a minor issue. How stupid and foolish are people to accept this or support this? Most people seem to.

a reply to: thisguyrighthere


Welcome to America!

Apart from people who are a threat to public safety do we really want to pay for people to be locked up for debt?

Many have had the rug pulled from under them by the bankers who should be in jail!

We have laws for fraud etc so surely that is enough. Isn't it time to ask whether the possible benefit of block votes for prisons and the so-called benefits for employment in some areas should be stopped and the moral issue of deserved punishment as opposed to punishment for events beyond many people's control, should be debated and then a prison policy for debtors decided.

Since when is debt a crime and one should think very carefully about this because many of our youngsters get into debt simply by naivety and inexperience? We are going backwards if we open debtors prisons and its a waste of manpower and brainpower because debt is something that the government has helped create by allowing such huge interest rates and fraudulent policies tht penalise the ordinary working individual to exist.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Why exactly SHOULD jail be "3 hots and a cot" as if it's a free hotel?

I wanted to comment on this, because, at least here in MI, it is not free. It is 35.00 a day for jail. But that is not included in "court costs or fines"

That you are billed afterward. Currently, you cannot be jailed for not paying your bill, but they will send you to collections, garnish wages and shows up on your credit rating.