For once the ACLU gets it right. It is inexcusable and should be illegal to throw anyone in jail just for owing money, especially when law enforcement has plenty of real, dangerous criminals with which it could be dealing.
I thought there was no such thing as “debtor’s prison” in the US.
Stopped clock. On this one I’m with the ACLU. I’m also against the laws that eliminated usury interest limits for the banks, and for the laws that made people unable to fully bankrupt out of credit card debt. Put them all together and think about the situation. Desperate people can be charged any amount of interest. They cannot fully bankrupt out. And for certain types of debts they can be jailed. Lovely isn’t it?
The ACLU and their ‘half lies’ - when will they ever learn?
Some states and counties have particularly insidious penalties reserved for the poor: To make up for budget shortfalls, some counties in Georgia aggressively pursue fines and fees in their traffic courts, and refer those defendants who cannot immediately pay to private probation supervision companies, which charge monthly fees that often double or triple the amount of money a probationer would have paid had he or she been able to afford the fine.
Also some jails are charging booking and daily room and board fees. It's ridiculous.
I do not trust the ACLU and never will......
There’s no profit in arguing with the ACLU when they’re right. I mean, it doesn’t happen often....
I think they got the story wrong. Municipalities can do math, so they know that they won’t make a dime imprisoning someone who can’t pay them.
What is really going on is a little more complicated, but not much.
It is called the “debtor loophole”, by which a private company can use the court system to imprison someone who owes them money, as a form of coercion.
1) When someone has a debt that they are unable to pay, more and more, companies are *selling* those debt to a collection service. Often for pennies on the dollar.
2) The collection service, who the debtor has never heard from, sends them bills which are ignored, for obvious reasons.
3) The collection service then *sues* the debtor in court, after sending them a court summons, which they also ignore, still not knowing what is going on, and never having been given a court summons before.
4) When the debtor doesn’t show up in court on the trial date, the collection service asks for a summary judgment against the debtor, then asks the judge to cite the debtor for “contempt of court”.
5) Typically, the judge then puts out a bench warrant, the surprised debtor is arrested, sentenced to jail for “contempt of court”, with their bail money set as the amount of their debt.
So technically, the debtor has *not* been imprisoned for being unable to pay their debt, which is typically not legal, but for contempt of court, which is very legal and happens a lot.
Yet the only way out of jail is to pay their debt. And yes, often this does work, as people in jail will do a lot to get out of jail, that they would not have done otherwise.