https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/02/24/debtors-prison...
It's a good programme, and worth a lsiten. (As are others in the series!)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pqskm
> Are excessive traffic fines and debtors' jails fuelling community tensions in suburban Missouri? Claire Bolderson reports on a network of ninety separate cities in St Louis County, most of which have their own courts and police forces. Critics say that their size makes them financially unviable and allege that some of them boost their incomes by fining their own citizens and locking them up when they can't pay.
> This edition of Crossing Continents goes out and about in St Louis County to meet the people who say they are victims of a system which sees arrest warrants issued for relatively minor misdemeanours. Many of the victims are poor and black. The programme also takes us into the courts, and out onto the freeways with some of the County's police, who say they are upholding the law and promoting road safety.
> The US government is not so sure. One of the towns in question is Ferguson where riots erupted after a white police officer shot a young black man dead last summer. In a recent report on the riots, the Department of Justice concluded that the Ferguson police had been stopping people for no good reason. It said they were putting revenue before public safety.
> Claire Bolderson investigates how widespread the practice is and considers the impact on relations between citizens and the authorities that govern them.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/muni-cou...
I think the problems are deeper than how much of a municipal budget can come from fines though.
Also, I realize in this case he was just arrested and not imprisoned. I wasn't speaking to just this exact case.
The arrest wasn't for debt either, it was for ignoring a court order.
I guess if you don't think there should be any legal mechanism to address non payment of debts then courts shouldn't be involved, but refusing or otherwise failing to participate in the legal process is not the same thing as just failing to pay a debt.
The, as in specifying a specific arrest. As I said, I'm talking in general, not in this particular case.
People are getting dragged to court because they have failed to answer a court order, but they aren't getting dragged to court and then tossed in jail because they stopped paying their credit card or mortgage.
Which hey, those are some pretty shitty situations, but why aren't they appearing in court when ordered?
So people aren't put in jail for failing to follow court orders that require them to pay money? That goes against the numerous news reports I've read of that happening. Now, some portion of those jailed may have the means to pay and choose not to. I would guess a large portion falls into that group. But I am highly doubtful that it is 100%.
>Which hey, those are some pretty shitty situations, but why aren't they appearing in court when ordered?
Based on another post I made, it appears that it can happen because they aren't notified because the official process to notify them only goes so far and if they have an old address or some incorrect information, you may never receive the summons.
This comment mentions houses surviving bankruptcy in Florida:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11110139
(I think some exception is reasonable, but not a huge one)
And then on the other side of it people are being kept from working because they owe petty fines. It's obviously not just.
The court should have ordered the seizure of bank assets to cover the debt. In no way should owning money ever result in jail time, fines, judgements or otherwise.
He was certainly compelled to appear in court (at what is probably a great waste of taxpayer resources), but after that appearance, I don't see where he would be detained if he didn't agree to pay the debt.
> He says seven deputy US Marshals showed up at his home with guns and took him to federal court where he had to sign a payment plan for the 29-year-old school loan.
He was not taken to prison, he was arrested. These are wildly different actions. Nowhere in the article do the strings "prison", "jail", "gaol", "cell", "penitentiary" or any other synonym for prison appear.
There is plenty of discussion elsewhere in the HN comments on what may have led to this arrest.
> Aker said he was put in the back of a truck and placed in a cell at the federal building in downtown Houston.
> Aker told The News that he was ordered to pay $5,700 for the loan, including interest. However, Aker was also ordered to pay for the cost of the morning arrest — nearly $1,300.
> If he didn't pay that amount by March 1, he said, he was told he would be arrested again.
Wonder what will happen when he's arrested again when he can't come up with $7000 in two weeks.
I have made no statement about the propriety of the actions described in either article, merely observed that this is not a case of sending someone to prison over a debt.
Where in the article did you see that "choice" presented? All that he was compelled to do was show up in court and agree to a payment plan. He might still never pay the debt.