If only there was a handy catchphrase for this system, where you put *debtors* in *prison* for being broke
Just in case it slipped past you in civics class, we outlawed debtor's prisons in the US because they were deemed absurd and inefficient. After all, a person locked in a cell clearly can do little to earn back the money he or she owes you.
We seem to have entered a patently bizarre headspace, as a nation, where we see an individual going broke not as an honored American tradition, but as a terrible moral failing. e.g., *All* of our "Great Men" hit the skids with one or more schemes. Just off the top of my head: Twain only finished Huck Finn because he'd lost a fortune, I believe on a compositor or typewriter scheme, and needed liquor money. Henry Ford and T.A. Edison likewise bottomed out several times before hitting their stride.
We've made it more and more difficult for individual humans to seek protection from creditors once they hit rock bottom, yet seem eager to bail out gargantuan proto-human corporate entities when they show egregiously--even morally ruinous--judgement.
What up with that, America?
Probation Fees Multiply as Companies Profit - NYTimes.com
It is, rather, about the mushrooming of fines and fees levied by money-starved towns across the country and the for-profit businesses that administer the system. The result is that growing numbers of poor people, like Ms. Ray, are ending up jailed and in debt for minor infractions.
“With so many towns economically strapped, there is growing pressure on the courts to bring in money rather than mete out justice,” said Lisa W. Borden, a partner in Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, a large law firm in Birmingham, Ala., who has spent a great deal of time on the issue. “The companies they hire are aggressive. Those arrested are not told about the right to counsel or asked whether they are indigent or offered an alternative to fines and jail. There are real constitutional issues at stake.”
. . .
“The Supreme Court has made clear that it is unconstitutional to jail people just because they can’t pay a fine,” Mr. Dawson [a Birmingham, AL lawyer and Democratic Party activist] said in an interview.
*thanks for the tip, cara!*
