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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

> A judge sentenced Husband to the restitution center in 2015 to pay off almost $13,000 she owed from an embezzlement conviction in 2009.

> The State of Mississippi had locked Husband into a modern-day debtors prison.

Let’s agree that this sort of punishment is potentially not conducive to restorative justice.

But what justification is there for the article to deceive the reader with a comparison to debtors prisons?

The EU Convention on Human Rights bans debtors prisons. It states: "No one shall be deprived of his liberty merely on the ground of inability to fulfil a contractual obligation." Restitution as punishment for a crime does not arise out of a “contractual obligation.” It arises out of a criminal conviction.

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Potato potato, that person would not have been in prison had they paid off the debt.

Where the debt comes from matters why exactly?

The prison should be for one purpose only: to make society safer. If someone is dangerous enough to be in prison, they should not be out regardless of whether they owe money or not.

In other words, if you can't buy your way out of prison, a debt should not bring you into one.

I will expand upon your point. Debt in this case is a civil matter between two private individuals. The State has an interest only, if that, in enforcing court decisions such as garnishment of wages or liens. To sentence someone to jail or prison for the crime of a civil disagreement is sick and wrong and I invite you (abstract yous) to prove me wrong via rhetoric.

According to the information in this thread, the amount owed was for a criminal conviction for embezzlement. This is not about a contract between private parties.

"People sent to the centers had been sentenced for felonies but didn’t commit violent crimes, according to the program rules. "

These people had no wage garnishment, instead they were sentenced to forced labor. Why the difference? Because they are poor.

And the line between civil and criminal is often drawn in a peculiar way: Repeat copyright violation enough and somehow it's criminal not civil, but systematically fail to pay artists their royalties it remains civil forever. Embezzling $1000 is criminal, keeping $1000 out of an employee paycheck is a civil.

> Potato potato, that person would not have been in prison had they paid off the debt.

No. The meaning of words matters. Words, used precisely, are how people with different values and beliefs can communicate and reach agreements in a functioning society. When journalists, who are supposed to inform and educate the public, twist the meaning of words in order to make a point, that’s wrong.

> Where the debt comes from matters why exactly?

Because a debt arising from a criminal conviction requires the convicted person to have engaged in a wrongful act in the first place. Mere failure to pay a civil debt does not.

> The prison should be for one purpose only: to make society safer

Views about the proper role of prisons vary widely. Most people believe that prisons are for punishing people for doing bad things. Note that by your reasoning, many people who do very bad things should not be imprisoned because there is no risk of recidivism. Women who murder their abusive husbands, for example, are almost never going to go and murder someone else. By your reasoning, they shouldn’t go to prison to punish them for their murder.

I see your point, but taking that on a tangent id say someone who has committed murder is more dangerous than the average person.

> Women who murder their abusive husbands, for example, are almost never going to go and murder someone else. By your reasoning, they shouldn’t go to prison to punish them for their murder.

That's a reasonable position to take, actually. Depends on the level of abuse, I'd say. https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/07/europe/uk-sally-challen-intl-...

The thing is, jail also acts as a deterrent to the first murder. If it's common knowledge that everyone gets one "murder your abusive spouse" consequence free, a lot more people might commit murders in cases where a divorce might have worked out better and less deadly.

I challenge you on "jail also acts as a deterrent to the first murder" as a cliched truism and again on "...a lot more people might commit murders..." - I mean really, you added the might because even you know you're just throwing BS against the proverbial wall.

I was under the impression that it was widely considered true that the threat of jail does act as a deterrent; and that it was longer jails times (doing more so) that was open to debate. Are you arguing that, if there was no jail time for anything at all, people would not commit more crimes?

Then that's about jail as a deterrent (making society safer by discouraging future crimes), not as a form of punishment for someone who did a bad thing.

It may be true that the deterrent is justifiable because it's also a legitimate form of punishment (for instance, saying "If anyone kills their spouse this year, I'll skin this puppy alive" might be a deterrent, but it's probably unjust), but it's not acting as punishment alone.

Aren't all punishments deterrents tho?

No - 'rayiner gave the example of punishing someone who killed their abusive spouse. First, the actual punishment certainly doesn't deter them from committing the same crime again in the future (they are, statistically at least, not particularly likely to marry another abusive spouse). Second, the threat of future punishment is almost certainly insufficient to dissuade them from the original act: if they feel like they're in immediate physical danger, they probably are reasoning that it would be worth it for them to risk punishment.

Besides desperation, there's also passion and mental instability. There's enough cases where you might just not be thinking about the potential punishment at all when committing a crime, meaning it doesn't deter you. For mental instability, we as a society have mostly decided we're okay with reducing/eliminating punishment (and perhaps that you should be institutionalized instead); for passion we generally haven't decided that, except perhaps with the concept of "temporary insanity."

No.

A punishment fails as a deterrent if:

+ it is not expected + it is not understood + it is not net negative

The first, not expected, fits when; one believes their actions are legal and then they are found not to be (correctly or incorrectly); one expects a different punishment to the one given, and the expected punishment was not a deterrent (often seen in fraud cases).

The second, not understood, fits when one expects the punishment but failed to understand its impact on them. For example, those incarcerated may misunderstand the lasting trauma of loss of privacy, agency, and family.

The third, not a net negative applies in cases where the punishment is deemed an acceptable risk or cost, or even desirable. Desirable has repeatedly been the case for the extremely impoverished or ill. Acceptable cost is seen in many corporate dealings, but mainly speeding and parking tickets for the individual. Acceptable risk is even more the corporate case (legal departments evaluate legal risk constantly) but is also the case for career criminals and moonshot criminals.

> A punishment fails as a deterrent if:

> + it is not expected + it is not understood + it is not net negative

Also if it is not expected to be avoided if the behavior sought to be deterred is avoided. The perception that a punishment is applied arbitrarily or with prejudice on grounds other than the behavior notionally justifying it defeats its value as deterrent as surely as a lack of perception that it will be applied if the behavior occurs.

I'd argue that you often only need one of those criteria.

Witness Vinod Khosla and his battles: he has expected fines, understands them (though disagrees), and the net negative is (in his case) so trivial as to be negligible.

"Oh, you want to fine me $10,000/day? Well, go for it. By the end of my life that might amount to 3% of my net worth".

That was in fact what I was attempting to convey. It was unfortunate that each point was formatted onto one line - I forgot that HN does not use markdown!

Depends on the amount of domestic abuse doesn't it? I think the rate is so high we should give the gall a medal and a standing ovation.

> The meaning of words matters.

Sure, and (unless wikipedia is lying) the words "debtor's prison" have for centuries included the imprisonment of people unable to pay court-ordered judgments, as well as private debts. Per that definition, the article's usage is correct.

(You can certainly make the argument that the situation described in the article doesn't meet the specific "contractual obligation" language in the EuCHR's definition, but that has nothing to do with your claim that the article is misleading people.)

You’re misreading the article. To enforce a private debt, you have to sue and get a “court ordered judgment.” A debt by itself is not executable until you get a judgment. “Debtors prison,” consistent with the EuCHR definition, historically referred to putting people in prison for failure to pay a court ordered judgement arising out of a private debt, i.e. “a contextual obligation.”

"Though in arrears on fines and court fees, many didn’t need to pay restitution at all—at least 20 percent of them were convicted of drug possession."

This whole line of argument about the use of the term debtors' prison not being accurate because of the circumstances of this one individual, as if her situation were the only being considered is so useless. Stop trying to detail the focus with the distraction. She was one example. People are thrown into those prisons (and simply indebtedness in general in other states) simply for being unable to pay arbitrary fines and fees. That she also got sent to that prison for a debt does not make it no longer a debtors' prison,

In any case I think people are ignoring the 8th amendment's prohibition the excessive fines, which applies to the states per supreme court ruling (Timbs vs. Indiana).

The prohibition on excessive fines has it's roots in the Magna Carta. (quoting from the Timbs vs. Indiana Supreme Court decision) "...Magna Carta required that economic sanctions "be proportioned to the wrong" and "not be so large as to deprive [an offender] of his livelihood."

> Women who murder their abusive husbands, for example, are almost never going to go and murder someone else. By your reasoning, they shouldn’t go to prison to punish them for their murder.

Yes, correct, thanks for setting out that argument. The organization Survived and Punished advocates for exactly this, because the argument you're making is sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survived_and_Punished https://survivedandpunished.org/

> No. The meaning of words matters. Words, used precisely, are how people with different values and beliefs can communicate and reach agreements in a functioning society. When journalists, who are supposed to inform and educate the public, twist the meaning of words in order to make a point, that’s wrong.

You're correct in that words do matter but entirely incorrect in your position, this is a debtors prison, it's literally in the name...

> Wiki: "A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt."

Also starting a reply with "No" makes you seem like an asshole and invalidates much of your credibility and people's desire to hear you out. The GP had a well reasoned (and correct) response to your original comment but you proceeded to devalue it with 2 letters.

>Also starting a reply with "No" makes you seem like an asshole and invalidates much of your credibility and people's desire to hear you out. The GP had a well reasoned (and correct) response to your original comment but you proceeded to devalue it with 2 letters.

Since he followed that "No" with several paragraphs, that's a moot point (not to mention much ruder that his reply, what with "makes you look like an asshole" and stuff).

And, no, "no" is not something that makes people look like assholes. It's just an expression of opinion -- whether accompanied by a justification/arguments or not. Even on its own, that is, without further arguments, it's still useful as a kind of "poll" (how many commenters agree or disagree with a thesis).

At worse, it's curt.

>No. The meaning of words matters. Words, used precisely, are how people with different values and beliefs can communicate and reach agreements in a functioning society.

A society that puts people in jail for not having $13000 to pay is not a "functioning society".

>Because a debt arising from a criminal conviction requires the convicted person to have engaged in a wrongful act in the first place. Mere failure to pay a civil debt does not.

If the convicted should go to jail, they should go to jail from a conviction for the wrongful act itself -- not for not being able to pay the debt created by it.

So what should happen if I get convicted of a crime and refuse to pay the fine? Am I in the clear now? There has to be some escalation of punishment for people who won't pay fines or the incentives suggest they just don't pay.

Debtors prisons don't make sense for normal debts, but a fine for embezzlement is not the same thing at all. The $13,000 isn't really a debt as much as it is a punishment. The real question is whether the corrections system passed up an effective opportunity to garnish normal wages - but I can imagine a lot of practical issues with that approach.

I've little doubt the situation in Mississippi is dodgy, but these aren't debtors prisons. These are strange ordinary prisons.

EDIT Hah, nevermind turns out I didn't know what a debtors prison was. Thanks fenomas.

> So what should happen if I get convicted of a crime and refuse to pay the fine?

If you refuse; the assets should be seized from you and the fine paid that way.

If you are unable to, then the fine is, ipso facto, excessive.

In either case penal slavery is not an appropriate answer.

Having to pay $13000 after embezzling $11000 is not excessive.

Having what is functionally a civil debt (even if it is imposed as part of a criminal judgement) for restitution collected by the means normal for unsecured civil debt, in the amount of the damages actually incurred plus reasonable interest, etc., is not excessive.

A criminal fine that it is impossible to pay with the person's actual means without impairing access to the basic necessities of life when the fine is imposed (including reasonably anticipated future income if the required mechanism of repayment allows it to be paid over time from future income), and no matter whether it is characterized as restitution or otherwise, no matter how it relates to past criminal gains, is excessive, and penal slavery (whether or not permitted by the 13th Amendment, which sets the bounds of what is legal but not what is moral) for inability to pay such an excessive fine compounds the injustice with gross violation of the most fundamental of human rights, and even more incarceration without penal slavery for inability (as opposed to refusal and obstruction when the means we're available) to pay would be piling injustice upon injustice.

>So what should happen if I get convicted of a crime and refuse to pay the fine? Am I in the clear now?

No, there's forfeiture for that.

"In many cases, the only failing of the person had been to not pay the debt".

Explain again, how that is the article's fault, "deceiving us" into feeling a "restitution center" is a "debtor's prison".

There are people there who have crimes other than/as well as financial obligations. But there are also those who solely have the financial side.

Your argument is that because it's not a "civil debtor's prison", it doesn't count. But that's you inserting that qualifier. Historically, debtor's prisons were used both criminally and civilly.

If you are fined $20,000 for a thing and are unable to pay, you end up in a prison and are forced to work off your debt.

This is functionally what debtors prisons were used for

From the wiki summary:

> Destitute persons who were unable to pay a court-ordered judgment would be incarcerated in these prisons until they had worked off their debt via labour or secured outside funds to pay the balance

Huh, TIL, for some reason I always thought they were for general debt.

YYDL, actually. They were for general debt.

This would actually happen. Usually the person you owe money to would drag you to court and then get you thrown in a debtors prison.

I guess my point was that you could end up there for civil or criminal things.

Say I did a bunch of work for your company. And you stiff me for $10,000. I can't just go immediately seize your back account. I first have to establish in the court of law that you owe me money.

So I'd sue you and the judge would award me $10,000. But he would award me the $10,000 as court ordered judgement which is the legal instrument that proves you owe me money.

So that line doesn't mean quite what you think it means.

Maybe the reason they would argue this is a debtors prison and not merely a matter arising from a criminal conviction is that she was ordered to pay back money which she had not, and therefore was remanded to the debtors prison. If she had the money, and paid it back, I would argue this would not have happened. The restitution centre is literally there to pay back debts, and not of the 'to society' kind.

But also to the very premise of theft, if I take $13,000 which I had access to from my boss but was not supposed to take, that is criminal (fair). But if my boss takes $13,000 from me, because he is a lousy cheapskate who decides to not pay me fairly for the time which I worked. That is a civil matter? Hell, in this case it is not even a civil matter, they are allowed to only pay her $4 an hour. 92 weeks of cheap forced labour.

Seems to me these words are all just used to reinforce the status quo.

She went to jail because she stopped going to her probation appointments.

She said her probation officers threatened her: "Next time you come in and you don’t have any money, you’re going to jail."

Fearing she would be thrown in prison for nonpayment, she stopped reporting.

> The EU Convention on Human Rights bans debtors prisons.

FWIW it is the "European Convention on Human Rights", drafted in 1950, usually abbreviated as ECHR (with its court being ECtHR). It is distinct from the EU, being a product of the Council of Europe.

Whereas the founding document for the EU (Treaty of Rome) was signed in 1957.

As for the EU, it has its own "Charter of Fundamental Rights", somewhat based upon the ECHR, but I can't spot a reference to debts or contractual obligations.

The ECHR would not forbid this Mississippi practice, as Articles 4 and 5 allow it. Similarly Articles 5 & 6 of EU CFR would also seem to allow this practice (read the explanatory notes).

Please clarify just what Convention, or Charter it is you are referring to, and which body created it.

ECHR - https://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Collection_Convention_195...

Article 4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_4_of_the_European_Conv...

Article 5 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_5_of_the_European_Conv...

EU CFR - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:...

Let's not also ignore the fact that most of the (Western European) states have explicitly _not_ ratified Article 4 of the EuCHR, despite having been signatories to the Convention.

> But what justification is there for the article to deceive the reader with a comparison to debtors prisons?

Yeah, this isn't debtors prison; it is penal slavery.

Not that it makes it any better.

> The EU Convention on Human Rights bans debtors prisons

It unconditionally (unlike the US Constitution) bans slavery, too.

I'm not sure what bearing “The EU Convention on Human Rights bans...” has on the facts here; not only does the Convention not apply here, but even if it did what the law prohibits has no bearing on what the facts actually are.

Words do matter and you are writing a deliberately deceitful post here trying to shy away from the fact that this is a debtors prison, full stop.

Once someone has been released from prison they have fulfilled their obligation to society. Sentencing them to prison again solely because they owe money from a previous sentence is a perversion of justice and an absolute farce. They are sent to prison because they owe a monetary debt.

When they've been released from prison and paid their fines and restitution money, they've fulfilled their obligation to society.

> The EU Convention on Human Rights bans debtors prisons. It states: "No one shall be deprived of his liberty merely on the ground of inability to fulfil a contractual obligation." Restitution as punishment for a crime does not arise out of a “contractual obligation.” It arises out of a criminal conviction.

Sure, but the Convention does not define the term "debtors' prison," however much you may want to imply that it does.

It merely says what you quoted; it says that this particular thing is a human right. It does not close the door to debtors' prisons that do not violate human rights but are still odious in civilized society; it certainly does not close the door to violations of human rights that are not enumerated in the Convention, perhaps because some party to the Convention wishes to continue violating human rights. The argument "Because the Convention doesn't ban it, it must not be a debtors' prison" is just as sound as saying "Because the 13th amendment doesn't ban it, it isn't slavery." Forced labor as punishment for a crime is permissible in the United States, and it's still slavery, of course.

The meaning of words matters, and a lawyer, of all people, ought to use words precisely when speaking about justice and imprisonment.

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