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Please sir, may i have more? Seriously, this is the sort of stuff the Founders revolted against.
The city of Biloxi, Mississippi is being accused of running a "modern-day debtor's prison" by illegally jailing poor city residents who owe fees for minor offenses like traffic tickets, according to a federal lawsuit filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The lawsuit alleges that the city routinely issues arrest warrants to collect unpaid fees and fines and jails poor city residents "in a scheme to generate municipal revenue." Once arrested, residents are forced to pay the full amount of their debt to the city in cash or remain in jail until they are able to see a judge, which can often take days, the ACLU claims in the suit
raybond
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Never underestimate the power of the state. In this case a collection agency.
raybond
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Debtors' prisons make an American comeback
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Alain Sherter of CBS MoneyWatch and the AP report on the disturbing resurgence of debtor's prisons in America. Though it is technically no longer legal to jail people for failure to pay their debts, the debt-collection industry has figured out how to game the courts to create a series of jail-able offenses related to nonpayment. These are largely legal tricks by which debt-collectors get court orders regarding debtors with which the debtors find difficult to comply, resulting in jail for violation of the court order, often over trifling sums.
Yet Illinois isn't the only state where residents get locked up for owing money. A 2010 report by the American Civil Liberties Union that focused on only five states -- Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington -- found that people were being jailed at "increasingly alarming rates" over legal debts. Cases ranged from a woman who was arrested four separate times for failing to pay $251 in fines and court costs related to a fourth-degree misdemeanor conviction, to a mentally ill juvenile jailed by a judge over a previous conviction for stealing school supplies.
According to the ACLU: "The sad truth is that debtors' prisons are flourishing today, more than two decades after the Supreme Court prohibited imprisoning those who are too poor to pay their legal debts. In this era of shrinking budgets, 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."
Some states also apply "poverty penalties," including late fees, payment plan fees, and interest when people are unable to pay all their debts at once, according to a report by the New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee, for instance, while Florida allows private debt collectors to add a 40 percent surcharge on the original debt. Some Florida counties also use so-called collection courts, where debtors can be jailed but have no right to a public defender.
Jailed for $280: The Return of Debtors' Prisons (via Naked Capitalism)
CashCowMoo
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Kind of hard to pay back the money when you go to jail and lose your job.
Relentless.
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She was paying $40 per month in probation fees and she had racked up how much debt? She was on probation that long for a reason.
Biloxi is a worthless cesspool. Drive down Division street...
The best thing that happened to this place was Katrina. Atleast it washed away some of the scum bags.
It also states that she lost her job at the stadium , almost implying that it was a long term job . Not true as it was just opened. How do I know this?
Because I built the effn thing.
Relentless.
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Not saying debtors prisons is a good thing... Not saying Biloxi PD should knock it off. Or even that they shouldn't be sued if they are in fact doing it. Just saying.. Using that.. lady.. as an example.. Might not work out so well.
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