DEBTORS PRISONS IN AMERICAN...No way. WAY!!

I wasn't particularly surprised to learn a while back that we actually imprison people for not paying their debts, yes, “Debtors Prison” is alive and well in modern day America. No matter the debt small or large. Never mind that imprisoning someone for a debt that person can not pay is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, I’ve learned that fully one third of our States are doing this, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Ohio, Maryland AND Washington State are among them.

Now I’m not talking about the act of deliberately bouncing a check, we all know that accounts for fraud and is a jailable offense. On the other hand, for example, if you have, through no fault of your own, incurred a large medical bill you cannot pay, or a credit card bill that your interest rates were radically maximized due to one or two late payments and has become a monster debt you simply can not pay, maybe, just maybe because you lost your job, your home, joined the ranks of the roughly 13 million unemployed in America, perhaps became ‘just’ another ‘casualty’ of the financial crises created by banksters and Wall Street, it seems INconceivable you could/should be arrested and jailed until the debt is paid in full.

Today I was reading an article in WDN about the ACLU fighting the State of Ohio currently for its acts of imprisoning people for not paying debts. In fact, a study they did in 2010 revealed the use of debtors prison practices in five states, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia and Washington that led to a comprehensive study by the ACLU of Ohio, released just this month, on the widespread practice of jailing people for debt. In their study and observations in courtrooms the ACLU of Ohio says it “found “no evidence that any of these people were given hearings to determine whether or not they were financially able to pay their fines, as required by the law” and that “courts in towns across Ohio are simply ignoring the requirements and jailing people who can’t pay their debts.”

The imprisonment of those unable to pay their debts seems on the surface to be based on punitive measures rather than efforts to have the debts paid, as was observed by the UCLA’s study…“The study finds people are going to jail for debts so small, it sometimes costs more than their debts to jail them.”. It apparently costs about $400 for an arrest warrant, and $50 - $60 a day to jail someone. And apparently how it works is each day in jail ‘forgives’ a certain amount of your debt. BUT wait, as I read and considered this I realized perhaps there IS more to this, having lived and learned more about our prison system that I ever cared to know these past almost 10 years, the method to this madness might be in keeping with capitalizing on our countrys misguided, overzealous policies of mass encarceration. Follow the $$. Taxpayer money funds our prisons/jails. For every inmate Facility’s receive Govt funding, so the practice is indeed profit driven, not so much to ‘right a wrong’, nor to even collect on the debt, but to make money off the bodies warehoused for their ‘crime’ of insolvency. Maybe I’ve just become too cynical over the past almost 10 years on this journey with my son, that I doubt, question, am prone to thoughts of 'conspiracies' more than ever, that this type of practice no longer comes as a surprise. The surprise comes in the fact few seem aware of, or care about, such practices anymore.

"Just because the power is out doesn't mean we unplug the constitution." ~Law and Order, "Darkness"