Apparently having 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of its prisoners simply isn’t good enough for neo-feudal America. No, we need to find more creative and archaic ways to wastefully, immorally and seemingly unconstitutionally incarcerate poor people. Welcome to the latest trend in the penal colony formerly known as America. Debtors’ prisons. A practice I thought had long since been deemed outdated (indeed it has been largely eradicated in the Western world with the exception of about 1/3 of U.S. states as well as Greece).
From Fox News:
As if out of a Charles Dickens novel, people struggling to pay overdue fines and fees associated with court costs for even the simplest traffic infractions are being thrown in jail across the United States.
Critics are calling the practice the new “debtors’ prison” — referring to the jails that flourished in the U.S. and Western Europe over 150 years ago. Before the time of bankruptcy laws and social safety nets, poor folks and ruined business owners were locked up until their debts were paid off.
Reforms eventually outlawed the practice. But groups like the Brennan Center for Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union say it’s been reborn in local courts which may not be aware it’s against the law to send indigent people to jail over unpaid fines and fees — or they just haven’t been called on it until now.
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law released a “Tool Kit for Action” in 2012 that broke down the cost to municipalities to jail debtors in comparison with the amount of old debt it was collecting. It doesn’t look like a bargain. For example, according to the report, Mecklenburg County, N.C., collected $33,476 in debts in 2009, but spent $40,000 jailing 246 debtors — a loss of $6,524.
Don’t worry, I’m sure private prisons for debtors will soon spring up to make this practice a pillar of GDP growth.
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They had better build enough for the entire population. Anybody out here not owe anything?
ReplyDeleteIt's totally against the law, but just watch OBozo make an "executive order".
Look out, people.
Look at the gun confiscation starting in Conn. Did you see the military raids of innocent citizens' homes when the bombers were loose?
The next step, now they have legal gun owners registered, is to confiscate those weapons by law. No criminals with guns are in that line, are they?
Read history.
ReplyDeleteAccomack county, VA. does it all the time, locks up men for unpaid child support, so they lose their job, and get further behind, and lock them up again after the 30-90 days, and it goes on and on from there.
ReplyDeleteWe all need to become informed about the DOJ's UNICOR Prison Corporation that produces and performs a whole list of services.
ReplyDelete--one in particular funded by Stimulus funds produce Solar panels for Constellation Energy that could have possibly been produced by the now closed Solarex plant in Frederick -yet Holder's Corp that now employs over 600K prisoners being paid $1.15 an hour reportedly earned 5 billion dollars in 2012 with zero oversight
No wonder there is a demand for prisoners ..don't expect the corporate media to say a word-- and it is likely these jobs that were created from an FDR pre release skills program that under Bush placed 24K interned in programs are being counted in the Dept of Labor jobs numbers --where are the Unions on this?
Brennan Institute also claimed there are no recorded cases of Voter Fraud a few years ago too-- the favorite go to resource for Marxist Political Science Professors in the Maryland State University System --something tells me this will soon be played as a race issue
ReplyDeleteGetting near time...
ReplyDelete6:21 where are the unions? wtf? are you serious? most union members have to pay union dues of one weeks hourly wages for membership. The unions want more than a $1.00 for representing anyone. ask your local teachers how much they have to fork over for a bunch of do nothings!
ReplyDelete