Cash-Strapped States Resurrect "Debtors’ Prisons"
Cash-Strapped States Resurrect “Debtors’ Prisons”
Former Montgomery County, Ohio, public defender Glen H. Dewar is profiled in the ACLU report for his efforts in eliminating the state’s debtors’ prisons. Dewar stated in the report, “My estimate is that 20 to 25 percent of all local incarcerations statewide are for fines and costs, while about 50 percent of arrests are for fines and costs … [until 2000], none of the persons arrested for nonpayment of fines and costs appeared on any court docket. Nor were they ever scheduled to appear at any particular time before any particular judge or magistrate.” Before county jail records were computerized, Dewar said, “the scope of the problem, in terms of both numbers of arrests and days in jail, remained hidden … the county also expanded jail space at a cost of millions, unaware of the fact that it was not for criminals but debtors.”
As noted in the Brennan Center report, several states have also started to utilize practices that violate the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees defendants a right to counsel. Florida, North Carolina and Virginia have all implemented mandatory defender fees and provide no opportunity to waive them for indigent cases.
Brennan Center for Justice notes:
Many states are imposing new and often onerous “user fees” on individuals with criminal convictions. Yet far from being easy money, these fees impose severe – and often hidden – costs on communities, taxpayers, and indigent people convicted of crimes. They create new paths to prison for those unable to pay their debts and make it harder to find employment and housing as well to meet child support obligations.
This report examines practices in the fifteen states with the highest prison populations, which together account for more than 60 percent of all state criminal filings. We focused primarily on the proliferation of “user fees,” financial obligations imposed not for any traditional criminal justice purpose such as punishment, deterrence, or rehabilitation but rather to fund tight state budgets.
Across the board, we found that states are introducing new user fees, raising the dollar amounts of existing fees, and intensifying the collection of fees and other forms of criminal justice debt such as fines and restitution. But in the rush to collect, made all the more intense by the fiscal crises in many states, no one is considering the ways in which the resulting debt can undermine reentry prospects, pave the way back to prison or jail, and result in yet more costs to the public.
Well, I think we are going to have to more efficiently use the assets of this country if we ever hope to close the Output Gap. (Clarification for the non-economist: Output Gap has nothing to do with The Gap retail clothing chain.)
The latest news is we have about $3.5 trillion in commercial real estate loans and a significant percentage of these are about to go bad. Since we have not nationalized the banking system, this means these assets will soon appear on either the Fed’s balance sheet, or possibly the Treasury balance sheet if the Republicans gain control of Congress and determine that the Treasury is the bailout entity of last resort.
Since it is a well known fact that we have a mismatch in this country between jail cell unit supply and inmate demand that price can’t seem to solve on it’s own, I propose using government foreclosures of shopping mall properties combined with a FDR style Public Works program to convert these properties to Debtor’s Prison.
Minimum Security should be adequate, so chain link fences with some razor wire strung along the top should do it. Cities will be laying off cops soon, and they make great security guards, so no job re-training required there. However, I would re-think the Sticky Wage Premise before settling on the new wages.
Rehabilitation is a core goal of incineration, so I’d leave the store signs in place, and the inmates will have plenty of quiet time to reflect on how their behavior does have consequences. Good behavior can and should be rewarded with approved visits to Dave and Busters.
We’ll leave the restaurants open, of course, and what better place for waitresses with psychology degrees to find a job!
Then, once we have re-structured the economy to more efficiently use our Output Gap, the last thing missing is Aggregate Demand. But certainly the government could raise some money, re-stock the shelves and pay inmates for being there so they had some money to spend!
The taxpayers are about to own a lot of new condos and apartment complexes too. Maybe they can be used somehow to house unemployable “inmates”…. (“outmates?”)
Sure, but we will want to provide health care somehow.
Whoops, the spell checker got me. “incineration” s/b “incarceration”. My bad.
To the best of my knowldege there are no debtors prisons in Ohio.
If you fail to pay fines and costs you may get picked up, that is true.
50% of arrests for fines and costs? Hard to believe.
Well, guys, here’s what my sister the family law practitioner says about debtors’ prisons. They are all the rage in Tallahassee, FL where she practices. She recently had a contract with the state to process unpaid child support cases. The noncustodial parent refused to pay and/or was unemployed/disabled/insane/in and out of jail, etc. So, s/he ran up a child support arrearage which subjected him/her to being summoned to an administrative hearing to assess the exact amount owed.
Whether the person shows or not, s/he is subject to a fine for failure to appear and a warrant issues for the arrest of the absent parent. So, they pick them up eventually for a traffic violation or some other minor infraction and throw them in jail until they pay the fine. Failure to pay child support is a felony, so you can stay in jail a long, long time. This is not considered a criminal hearing so none of the usual due process applies.
Can work the same way for unpaid traffic fines or other tickets. There’s no indigency defense either in the child support or traffic fine situations in many states. In California, there are some indigency provisions, but the escalating fines for no shows, etc. mean that many people are never able to pay and spend up to a year in jail. For being debtors. NancyO
Sounds like cruel and usual punishment. 🙁
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/congress-corporate-sponsors
The above web site, which two days ago displayed a table ranking the senators and representatives by the amount of campaign money they recieved is no longer available on my computer.
The table showed that John McCain of Az was the largest recipient with $34 MM and Jon Kyl, Mr no Social Security or Medicare in, I think, 3rd place.
It is disturbing that this information is no longer available. Who and why is blocking the free dissemination of this info ? The national security apparatus that has been put in place to protect us from George Bush’s friend’s children (Osama Bin Laden) ?
Perhaps it is just my computer.
The above web site, which two days ago displayed a table ranking the senators and representatives by the amount of campaign money they recieved is no longer available on my computer.
Should have read:
The above web site, which two days ago displayed a table ranking the senators and representatives by the amount of campaign money they recieved from financial institutions is no longer available on my computer.
All part of the regressive taxation regime that has been “progressing nicely since Wrongald Raygun. If you are swindling your poor Walmart for minimum wage selling imported goods and you run a stop sign trying to get to work, 400 bucks plus an increase in your mandatory insurance premium.
Let’s see, $7.25/hr (an outrage) times 40 hrs/wk = $290/wk or $15,080 per year. If you don’t pay your thrown in jail ?
Copmpare that with the hugely successful Ivy League Welfare Program. Record bonuses in the year their criminal business model collapsed (ie an average of $1.5 MM per year on top of their $650,000 per year base salary.)
What the F*** is wrong with this country?. We are sick, very, very sick.
Putting men in jail for not paying child support is old news, politicians got tired of facing angry women.
http://motherjones.com/special-reports/2010/09/congress
Here’s a Mother Jones article of sources of funding for Congress generally and some members of Congress specifically. Sandi, this article provides a general view. I think the article itself may give links to other sources, but you can get more information at this federal website, too. http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml Interesting that even people who are well funded eventually retire as Obey plans to. NancyO.
Ohio has a really bad record in this area of law…a funding issue I believe.
I don’t think the bulk of the sentencing is for child support by a wide margin Rusty.
Fines and seizures (and involuntary “user fees”) should be solely a disincentive for offenses, not an incentive for prosecution. Consider the ugliness of small-town speed traps. Consider the corruption around “asset forfeiture”. Consider the financial incentive structure of the Spanish Inquisition.
The principle of using prosecution as a source of revenue encourages a particularly nasty form of corruption. A systemic reform would place fines into a pool that benefited a diffuse class of people with no conflict of interest.