As the first story on Countdown on Monday (transcript), Keith had Rachel Maddow as his guest as they discussed the growing desire of Republican Senate candidates to return us to the bad old days of the pre-New Deal era, when there were no minimum wage or child labor laws, and no Social Security. But the barbarous visions of would-be Senators like Alaska's Joe Miller and Kentucky's Rand Paul are only frightening possibilities. Not so the burning down of Gene Cranick's house because he hadn't paid a $75 which Keith also covered in his program. And not so another practice of yesteryear, that's apparently making a big comeback during this era of tight budgets.
Prior to the mid 19th century debtors' prisons were a common way to deal with unpaid debt. Currently, the practice of giving prison sentences for unpaid debts has been mostly eliminated, with a few exceptions such as inability to pay child support and certain taxes, and some specific countries, such as the United Arab Emirates....
The father of the English author Charles Dickens was sent to one of these prisons (Marshalsea Prison), which were often described in Dickens' novels.
[In the UK] The Debtors Act 1869 abolished imprisonment for debt, although debtors who had the means to pay their debt, but did not do so, could still be incarcerated for up to six weeks....
In 1833 the United States abolished Federal imprisonment for unpaid debts, and most states outlawed the practice around the same time. Before then, the use of debtor's prisons was widespread....
Sometimes, imprisonment would result from less than sixty-cents worth of debt.
It is still possible to be incarcerated for debt, though this may be unconstitutional unless the court finds that the debtor actually possesses the means to pay.
Well, in fact, in 1983 the Supreme Court did rule that imprisonment for debt was unconstitutional in Bearden v. Georgia, but so what? Debtors prisons are back anyway, according to a new report from the ACLU, as well as a companion report from teh Brennen Center for Justice, "Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier to Reentry"
People are being imprisoned for not paying "legal financial obligations" (LFOs)--a general term that includes all fines, fees, and costs associated with a criminal sentence. LFOs have been booming in recent years as yet another way of squeezing money out of the poor for government, while giving more and more breaks to the rich. It seems like a real no-brainer money-maker, but it can actually end up costing a lot more than it brings in... not to mention verging on a return to the most ancient form of slavery, bonded indebtedness, which goes back thousands of years.
In the executive summary, the report explains:
The Court ruled [in Bearden v. Georgia] that imprisoning a probationer who, through no fault of his own, had been unable to pay his debts despite making bona fide efforts to do so violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court held that sentencing courts must inquire into a defendant's reasons for failing to pay a fine or restitution before sentencing him to serve time in prison; to imprison someone merely because of his poverty would be fundamentally unfair.
Today, courts across the United States routinely disregard the protections and principles the Supreme Court established in Bearden v. Georgia over twenty years ago. In the wake of the recent fiscal crisis, states and counties now collect legal debts more aggressively from men and women who have already served their criminal sentences, regardless of whether they are able to pay these debts. In this report, In For A Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons, the ACLU presents the results of its yearlong investigation into our modern-day "debtors' prisons." The report shows how, day after day, indigent defendants are imprisoned for failing to pay legal debts they can never hope to manage. In many cases, poor men and women end up jailed or threatened with jail though they have no lawyer representing them. These sentences are illegal, create hardships for men and women who already struggle with re-entering society after being released from prison or jail, and waste resources in an often fruitless effort to extract payments from defendants who may be homeless, unemployed, or simply too poor to pay.
• In Louisiana, the ACLU profiles Sean Matthews, a homeless construction worker who was assessed $498 in fines and costs when he was convicted of possession of marijuana in 2007. He was arrested two years later after failing to pay his LFOs, and spent five months in jail at a cost of more than $3,000 to the City of New Orleans.
• In Michigan, the ACLU profiles Kawana Young, a single mother of two young sons, who was arrested in March 2010 for failing to pay LFOs connected with several minor traffic offenses. Ms. Young was ordered to pay $300 or spend three days in jail for one of her offenses. She was unable to pay, having been recently laid off and unable to find work again, but the judge refused to allow her to pay on a payment schedule and remanded her back to jail for three days. Because she was sent back to jail, Ms. Young was charged a booking fee and a daily fee for her room and board, LFOs she would not have incurred had she been able to pay her $300 fine on the day she was sentenced.
• In Ohio, the ACLU profiles Howard Webb, who was thrown in jail no fewer than four times over a six-year period for failing to pay $2,882.36 in LFOs assessed for various criminal and traffic offenses. During these years, Mr. Webb, a dishwasher earning $7 per hour, entered into several payment plans, made some payments, signed up for community service, and also wrote numerous letters to the court asking for early release so that he could keep his employment and make payments. The court denied all his requests, noting that it would only release him "if the court receives all the money he owes." In all, Mr. Webb served 330 days in jail. Had the judge followed state law requiring that Mr. Webb be credited for $50 a day toward his LFO debt for each day he was incarcerated, his time in jail would have covered $16,500 in fines-more than five times what he owed in LFOs.
• In Georgia, the ACLU profiles "Beth," who was arrested and placed on probation at $40 a month when she was a juvenile after she stole some school supplies. Though Beth suffers from mental illness and was under her mother's care, she was transferred to the adult probation system when she turned seventeen. Her probation officer refused to keep Beth's mother-who had paid her probation charges and made sure she kept all of her appointments and court appearances-informed of Beth's obligations. Beth missed several LFO payments and court appearances and was arrested for violating her probation. Without an attorney present, the judge ordered that Beth be jailed without determining if she had the means to pay her probation fees. Beth was released only after her mother came up with enough money to get her out. Overall, Beth has been charged $4,000 plus probation fees and had her social security disability income revoked for missing LFO payments.
• In Washington, the ACLU profiles four men and women as they struggle to manage their legal debts. One of them is "Nick," a 38-year-old African American man who has struggled with drug addiction and mental health problems since he was a teenager. Nick accumulated a total of $3,178 in LFO debt to the state, for which he established a monthly payment plan. After failing to make two monthly payments totaling $60, Nick was incarcerated for two weeks in the county jail at a cost to the county of approximately $1,720.
The report goes on to explain the "logic" involved:
Imprisoning those who fail to pay fines and court costs is a relatively recent and growing phenomenon: States and counties, hard-pressed to find revenue to shore up failing budgets, see a ready source of funds in defendants who can be assessed LFOs that must be repaid on pain of imprisonment, and have grown more aggressive in their collection efforts. Courts nationwide have assessed LFOs in ways that clearly reflect their increasing reliance on funding from some of the poorest defendants who appear before them.
For example, courts in rural Michigan counties are more aggressive in assessing and collecting court costs and defender fees-which go directly into county coffers-than fines, which are deposited into a statewide fund. Because many court and criminal justice systems are inadequately funded, judges view LFOs as a critical revenue stream.
In New Orleans, for example, LFOs account for almost two-thirds of the criminal court's general operating budget. One town in Ohio with a population of 60 collected more than $400,000 in one year in LFOs assessed in its mayor's court, one of many largely unregulated traffic and municipal ordinance courts in the state with a well-earned reputation for assessing exorbitant fines and fees to pad local budgets.
Although states and counties view LFOs as much-needed revenue, they do not systematically gather and produce data showing that their efforts to collect unpaid legal debts actually make money. In fact, incarcerating indigent defendants unable to pay their LFOs often ends up costing much more than states and counties can ever hope to recover. In one two-week period this May, 16 men in New Orleans were sentenced to serve jail time when they could not pay their LFOs. If they served their complete sentences, their incarceration would cost the City of New Orleans over $1,000 more than their total unpaid legal debts. In Washington, one man was jailed for two weeks for missing $60 in LFO payments. In Ohio, a woman was held in jail for over a month for an unpaid legal debt of $250.
Incarcerating indigent men and women only diminishes their ability to repay their legal debts, and the disruption in their lives and the lives of their families and loved ones can lead to increased public costs when they are forced to use social welfare programs to survive. Even when defendants are not incarcerated, the costs of collection efforts can make seeking unpaid LFOs cost-ineffective, since issuing warrants, conducting hearings, and using collections agents and law enforcement officials to locate and detain debtors all cost money.
Well, gosh, if it's not making money like it's supposed to, perhaps we should just bring back the lash, no? Maybe with a stoning or two thrown in for good measure?
I'll be doing a followup diary on the Brennan Center report tomorrow. It covers a broader scope--fifteen states.
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