Comments on: ACLU Discovers Illegal “Debtors’ Prisons” in Ohio

By: Jinx

Jinx — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 20:54:00 +0000

Futilism = futile

By: LAURA KEY

LAURA KEY — Tue, 14 May 2013 01:43:00 +0000

Wait till Obamacare hits you right between the eyes! People will not be able to afford it … and if they do already have insurance, that coverage will double or triple… and then they can’t afford that either. So the feds dip into your bank account… confiscate money, leaving you will no way to make your home payments, buy food, pay utilities, or whatever else… and so you lose your home and end up in debtors’ prison.
(Of course, criminals and gangbangers will NEVER pay anything since they are “entitled” to their lifestyle….. and YOU will have to cover their costs with your taxes too.)

By: Kimberly Lilly

Kimberly Lilly — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:03:00 +0000

I went to jail for a car registration ticket I couldn’t afford to pay, being a single mother living in Southern California. Went back to court to see if I could do community service and the judge said I could pay the fine then–a little over $500–or go to jail. As I couldn’t pay the fine “right then” nor, in that time frame, call family to borrow money for the fine, I was put in jail. The most absurd part was that my bail was $25,000!

I was relatively young and inexperienced, but after I learned a little about the law and what is and is not constitutionally protected, I realized that what happened to me was almost assuredly a violation of my rights. It’s unfortunate that I didn’t know that then. To think of that judge on the bench for years later, allowed to do that same thing to anyone he arbitrarily disliked is horrifying. It was bad enough that it happened to me, but it’s shameful if it’s something widespread and systemic.

By: Yrro Simyarin

Yrro Simyarin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 02:02:00 +0000

Of course, you can be jailed for resisting the seizure of your property, or for hiding property from the court that could be used to pay the fine. In the end there is *always* the threat of jail time if you don’t cooperate with payment.

By: Brutus

Brutus — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 05:13:00 +0000

Quite aside from whether or not the practice is constitutionally sound, it seems to me that it is ineffective at getting people to pay fines, at reducing crime, and at improving public welfare. If that is the case, the practice of jailing people for failure to pay should be abolished at every local level, regardless of federal considerations.

By: Brutus

Brutus — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 05:11:00 +0000

There is no meaningful category of “able but unwilling” to pay a debt owed to the courts. The courts are where you go to protest when someone takes something that you have title to; they have no difficulty seizing or (more commonly) putting a lien on what you nominally own. It’s only people who don’t have enough assets that end up jailed.

By: Lunad

Lunad — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 01:13:00 +0000

While I agree that people who can’t pay shouldn’t be punished for not doing so, there should still be a penalty for the original crime – failure to pay should not mean that they get off scott free for public drunkeness (or whatever). It is a difficult question, because if the wealthy get fines and the poor get community service or jail time, it will seem like the wealthy are buying their way out of jail/work.

By: Yrro Simyarin

Yrro Simyarin — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 01:12:00 +0000

Is there anyone with actual legal experience who reads this blog? I’m curious how this doesn’t result in effective immunity from level 4-5 misdemeanors for the poorest end of society. Obviously it’s a problem that courts have been dealing with/have dealt with for a long time.

The ACLU’s argument that Huron County’s practice is unconstitutional does seem pretty clearly to be the correct legal theory from what I can see.

By: Yrro Simyarin

Yrro Simyarin — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 19:23:00 +0000

No, they would not. They’re small county jails whose judges (according to the articles) handle pretty much only minor misdimeanor/traffic type cases.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:30:00 +0000

There has to be *some* penalty if the person is unable or unwilling to pay

Unable and unwilling would seem to me to occupy two completely different ethical categories.

A penalty of some kind seems appropriate and necessary for people who have demonstrable means to pay a fine but refuse to (though the cost of incarceration probably outweighs the benefit of prison as a deterrent). But I don’t see what reasonable public interest is served by penalizing people for being unable (i.e. too broke) to pay a fine.

By: Juliet

Juliet — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 05:13:00 +0000

The penalty is that they can garnish your wages. There’s no reason to send people to prison for debt, and it’s counterproductive to do so.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:02:00 +0000

It’s quite common, apparently:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_U.S._by_State

By: Emily Stewart

Emily Stewart — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 22:10:00 +0000

I’m sure it will come as a shock to everyone that Ohio has recently been in the news for having blatantly corrupt for-profit prisons.

By: Theresa Wheeler

Theresa Wheeler — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 20:18:00 +0000

Mississippi does this statewide. Its institutionalized. Can we get an ACLU injunction?

By: Lunersprite

Lunersprite — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 20:01:00 +0000

This actually happens quite a lot here in Kansas as well. It’s always listed as “contempt of court” on the booking page.