Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
In October of 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union published a report titled In for a Penny: The Rise of America’s New Debtors’ Prisons. The ACLU had found that debtors’ prisons were “flourishing” in this country, “more than two decades after the Supreme Court prohibited imprisoning those who are too poor to pay their legal debts.” In 2011, Huffington Post reported that debtors’ prisons were legal in more than one-third of the states in this country.
According to the ACLU report, some state and local governments “have turned aggressively to using the threat and reality of imprisonment to squeeze revenue out of the poorest defendants who appear in their courts. These modern-day debtors’ prisons impose devastating human costs, waste taxpayer money and resources, undermine our criminal justice system, are racially skewed, and create a two-tiered system of justice.”
Marie Diamond—writing for ThinkProgress in December 2011:
Federal imprisonment for unpaid debt has been illegal in the U.S. since 1833. It’s a practice people associate more with the age of Dickens than modern-day America. But as more Americans struggle to pay their bills in the wake of the recession, collection agencies are using harsher methods to get their money, ushering in the return of debtor’s prisons.
Two years ago, the Wall Street Journal reported—after interviewing twenty judges across the country—that the number of borrowers who were threatened with arrest in their courtrooms had “surged since the financial crisis began.” The Wall Street Journal added that some borrowers who were jailed had “no idea before being locked up that they were sued to collect an outstanding debt” because of “sloppy, incomplete or even false documentation.” Diamond said it was becoming more and more common for debtors to serve time in jail. She added that some debtors are even required to pay for their time spent in jail—which, she said, exacerbates their dire financial situations.
Back in 2011, NPR told the story of what happened to an Illinois woman named Robin Sanders:
She [Robin Sanders] was driving home when an officer pulled her over for having a loud muffler. But instead of sending her off with a warning, the officer arrested Sanders, and she was taken right to jail.
“That’s when I found out [that] I had a warrant for failure to appear in Macoupin County. And I didn’t know what it was about.”
Sanders owed $730 on a medical bill. She says she didn’t even know a collection agency had filed a lawsuit against her.
“They say they send out these court notices, and nobody gets them,” Sanders says.
She spent four days in jail waiting for her father to raise $500 for her bail. That money was then turned over to the collection agency.
Just this month, the ACLU of Ohio published a report titled The Outskirts of Hope: How Ohio’s Debtors’ Prisons Are Ruining Lives and Costing Communities. The ACLU found that many municipalities in Ohio “routinely imprison those who are unable to pay fines and court costs despite a 1983 United States Supreme Court decision declaring this practice to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.” The ACLU said that affluent residents of Ohio who are sentenced to pay fines after being convicted of a criminal or traffic offense can simply pay the fines and go on with their lives. The same does not hold true for “Ohio’s poor and working poor” who may not have the monetary resources to pay their fines. Such people may find themselves at the “beginning of a protracted process that may involve contempt charges, mounting fees, arrest warrants, and even jail time. The stark reality is that, in 2013, Ohioans are being repeatedly jailed simply for being too poor to pay fines.”
Some Findings from The Outskirts of Hope:
Debtors’ Prisons In Ohio
• Despite clear constitutional and legislative prohibitions, debtors’ prison practices are alive and well throughout Ohio. An investigation by the ACLU of Ohio uncovered conclusive evidence of these practices in 7 of the 11 Ohio counties examined.
• Courts in Huron, Cuyahoga, and Erie counties are among the worst offenders. In the second half of 2012, over 20% of all bookings in the Huron County Jail were related to failure to pay fines. In Cuyahoga County, the Parma Municipal Court jailed at least 45 people for failure to pay fines and costs between July 15 and August 31, 2012. During the same period in Erie County, the Sandusky Municipal Court jailed at least 75 people for similar charges.
• Based on the ACLU of Ohio’s investigation, there is no evidence that any of these people were given hearings to determine whether or not they were financially able to pay their fines, as required by the law.
The ACLU of Ohio reported that the U.S. Constitution, the Ohio Constitution, and Ohio Revised Code all prohibit debtors’ prisons. It said that the courts are required by law to determine whether an individual is too poor to pay a fine before jailing the person. It added that “debtors’ prisons actually waste taxpayer dollars by arresting and incarcerating people who will simply never be able to pay their fines, which are in any event usually smaller than the amount it costs to arrest and jail them.”
According to CBS News, “high rates of unemployment and government fiscal shortfalls that followed the housing crash have increased the use of debtors’ prisons, as states look for ways to replenish their coffers.” Inimai Chettiar, director of the justice program at New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice, said, “It’s like drawing blood from a stone. States are trying to increase their revenue on the backs of the poor.” He added, “It’s a growing problem nationally, particularly because of the economic crisis.”
Does it make sense to jail poor people for failure to pay their fines when jailing them only drives them deeper into debt and also “costs counties more than the actual debt because of the cost of arresting and incarcerating individuals?”
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“Unfortunately, many Americans live on the outskirts of hope — some because of their poverty, and some because of their color, and all too many because of both. Our task is to help replace their despair with opportunity.”
– President Lyndon B. Johnson (State of the Union, 1964)
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SOURCES
The Outskirts of Hope: How Ohio’s Debtors’ Prisons Are Ruining Lives and Costing Communities (ACLU)
IN FOR A PENNY: The Rise of America’s New Debtors’ Prisons (ACLU)
Report: Ohio Is Illegally Throwing Poor People In Jail For Owing Money (Think Progress)
The Return Of Debtor’s Prisons: Thousands Of Americans Jailed For Not Paying Their Bills (Think Progress)
Debtors’ Prison Legal In More Than One-Third Of U.S. States (Huffington Post)
Debtor Arrests Criticized (Wall Street Journal)
Welcome to Debtors’ Prison, 2011 Edition (Wall Street Journal)
Modern-day debtors’ prison alleged in Ohio (NBC/AP)
Unpaid Bills Land Some Debtors Behind Bars (NPR)
Modern-day debtors’ prison alleged in Ohio (NBC News)
When I first read this article, I immediately thought about the former US Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner, who owed more than $15k to the IRS. Geithner was didn’t have his paycheck garnished, he didn’t receive any threatening collection notices, or failure to appear in court notices. Instead, he was nominated (and received numerous offers to sit on the board of a few Fortune 500 companies & colleges & universities) to be incharge of the IRS.
Editorial
Return of Debtors’ Prisons
New York Times
Published: July 13, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/opinion/return-of-debtors-prisons.html?_r=0
A tenet of the American legal system is that it treats the poor and rich alike. The Supreme Court made this clear in 1970, 1971 and 1983, ruling that it is fundamentally unfair and violates equal protection under the Constitution for a judge to lock up an indigent or unemployed person because he cannot afford to pay a speeding ticket or a fine for a misdemeanor.
Yet judges routinely jail people to make them pay fines even when they have no money to pay. As Ethan Bronner reported last week in The Times, minor offenders who cannot pay a fine or fee often find themselves in jail cells.
And felony offenders who have completed their prison sentences are often sent back to jail when they cannot pay fees and fines they owe because they could not earn money while locked up. Often, these defendants are not told that they have a right to a court-appointed lawyer to challenge their detention.
This devastating problem has gotten far worse the past five years, the result of budget-strapped state courts looking for sources of revenue and ever more poor people becoming ensnared in the court system. For decades, state court systems have gotten short shrift in the budget process and are often starved of revenue. Since the recession began, courts have increasingly had to fend for themselves by imposing fees on criminal defendants to address budget gaps. In Cambria County, Pa., for example, the Court of Common Pleas imposed 26 fees on a woman convicted of a drug crime, including $8 each for postage and judicial computers.
This revenue-oriented approach is made worse by the increasing use of for-profit companies to collect fees owed to the courts. They add hefty fees of their own to make their profits and have gotten judges to issue arrest warrants if someone has not paid up — with no apparent need to consider a person’s inability to pay.
State judicial leaders need to take on these indefensible practices. They should require trial judges to assess individuals’ ability to pay and reduce fines to what an offender can afford or to impose community service time in lieu of fines. They also need to monitor and discipline judges who continue to allow the poor to be imprisoned, flouting the Constitution, Supreme Court holdings and basic fairness.
Also, many of the OWS groups are pro gun control. The tea party is very much pro- gun.
Ron Paul tried a bit to make that happen but his libertarian positions on healthcare and the safety net along with his positions on social issues caused the young, minorities ,women and gay people to run away from him and into the polls to vote for the democrats.
Occupy and the Tea Party will never merge. Tea party is too white and too christian.
Here in WA it is done by the contempt method for criminal fines. But WA is always sneaky about how it gets its precious money. It also allows judges to enforce contempt of civil court actions against deadbeat parents who do not perform on court orders to pay child support. I had one experience where in six months I arrested the same guy for this.
WA also loves to require a license for everything under the sun and then revokes that license for misbehavior and then has people criminally charged for doing whatever it is with a revoked license.
It was a frequent event where someone would get a traffic ticket (a non criminal infraction) and then not pay the fine or fail to pay on the payment plan then the court would notify the Department of Licensing who would suspend the driver license. Then the person would get pulled over for some minor violation and since their license was suspended they would get arrested for DWLS 3rd. Then the person would be fined several hundred dollars and it would add to the bill. Then they got into the dwls spiral and some of them went years like this. It is a problem here.
But what is the state to do when people refuse to pay their fines? What options should they have?
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/will-republicans-privatize-debtors-prisons-
http://www.texasobserver.org/debtors-prisons-rise-again-in-the-south/ Seven of the fifteen states that have debtors prisons are in the south.
G.Mason 1, April 7, 2013 at 3:14 pm
Elaine, at some point Occupy and the Tea Party need to sit down together and realize they are fighting the same enemy and unite, to take on the common enemy.
The idea of Occupy, the Tea Party and Anonymous merging into one is not as crazy as it sounds. In fact, I predict it will happen.
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It should happen.
They have all been infiltrated with operatives to try to keep it from happening.
Elaine, at some point Occupy and the Tea Party need to sit down together and realize they are fighting the same enemy and unite, to take on the common enemy.
The idea of Occupy, the Tea Party and Anonymous merging into one is not as crazy as it sounds. In fact, I predict it will happen.
Why? It is simple. The forgiving Lord is not in them. The devil believes in force. The Lord in people frees people.
Kraaken,
Why do you think the ACLU is involved. They are private citizens and lawyers fighting to protect the constitution. Why didn’t the Ohio state officials call a halt to this?
Actually, we have apparently been doing this for some time. That is exactly what the ‘fifty dollars or ten days’ system of justice in traffic court is. If you don’t have the fifty bucks, you spend the ten days in jail. I don’t see much of a difference.
“Dredd-Why didn’t lawyers (e.g. American Bar Association) stop this from happening?”
Probably because their fees were part of the debt owed.
lexmanifesta 1, April 7, 2013 at 1:43 pm
Dredd,
The judge’s are right there on the front line. They are facilitating the use of the court as leverage to collect debt. A judge can always make the observation that something is illegal and remedy the situation. They many times don’t because the illegality in jailing the debtor is based upon the debtor coming forward with proof that the failure to pay was not willful. This requires proof that you are financially unable to pay and that the disability is not the result of failure to pursue employment compensated sufficiently to enable the debtor to liquidate his/her debt. Many of the poor don’t understand this and without legal representation fail to meet this burden …
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More and more the world around us in the U.S.eh? is looking like the world George Orwell observed when he coined the phrase “bully worship.”
Elaine M has hit an important layer of our failing understanding of the once supreme idea “the common good.”
From ACLU Ohio:
Modern-Day Debtors’ Prisons: Megan’s Story
Across America, the Return of Debtor Prison
2/14/2013
by Alex Kane
http://www.occupy.com/article/across-america-return-debtor-prison
Excerpt:
Kawana Young, a single mother of two kids, was arrested in Michigan after failing to pay money she owed as a result of minor traffic offenses. She was recently laid off from her job, and could not pay the fees she owed because she couldn’t find another source of employment.
So a judge sentenced her to three days in jail. In addition, Young was charged additional fees for being booked and for room and board for a place she did not want to be. In total, she has been jailed five times for being unable to pay her debts.
“It doesn’t make sense to jail people when they can’t pay because they definitely can’t pay while they’re in jail,” said Young.
Debtor prisons seem to belong in America’s past. But if you think the existence of prisons for people who can’t afford to pay their debts in the past, think again. Young’s ordeal, profiled in an American Civil Liberties Union report, began in 2005, after she was ticketed because she was driving without her license.
It all came to a head in 2010, when Young was arrested because she did not pay off all of her debts from traffic violations. That arrest led to the judge ordering Young to jail due to her inability to pay off the money.
Jailed for $280: The Return of Debtors’ Prisons
By Alain Sherter
CBS MoneyWatch – Mon, Apr 23, 2012
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jailed-for–280–the-return-of-debtors–prisons.html
Excerpt:
How did breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay end up behind bars? She didn’t pay a medical bill — one the Herrin, Ill., teaching assistant was told she didn’t owe. “She got a $280 medical bill in error and was told she didn’t have to pay it,” The Associated Press reports. “But the bill was turned over to a collection agency, and eventually state troopers showed up at her home and took her to jail in handcuffs.”
Although the U.S. abolished debtors’ prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don’t pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff’s deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.
Under the law, debtors aren’t arrested for nonpayment, but rather for failing to respond to court hearings, pay legal fines, or otherwise showing “contempt of court” in connection with a creditor lawsuit. That loophole has lawmakers in the Illinois House of Representatives concerned enough to pass a bill in March that would make it illegal to send residents of the state to jail if they can’t pay a debt. The measure awaits action in the senate.
“Creditors have been manipulating the court system to extract money from the unemployed, veterans, even seniors who rely solely on their benefits to get by each month,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said last month in a statement voicing support for the legislation. “Too many people have been thrown in jail simply because they’re too poor to pay their debts. We cannot allow these illegal abuses to continue.”