What would we do without the ACLU to lobby for our conscience? In a further sign that the table is turning against the liberal reforms of the safety net since the 1840 Social Revolutuion, Debtor's prisons are back.
[New America Media] Poor men and women exit America's prisons and jails, believing that they have paid their debts to society, but a new prison study by the ACLU revealed that many are being locked up or threatened because they cannot afford to pay their legal fines.
After a year long investigation into the assessment and collection of fees associated with criminal sentences in Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, and Washington, the ACLU reported in “In for a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons,” that courts across the U.S. were profiting from debtors' prisons by violating a Supreme Court decision ordering courts to investigate a person's inability to pay before returning them to prison.
“In some cases the courts are making decisions to incarcerate someone and the courts are not bearing the costs of having to incarcerate them, so they can make decisions based upon what they feel is appropriate in the circumstances of a defendant without having to bear the consequences of that decision,” said Eric Balaban, Senior Staff Counsel for the National Prison Project of the ACLU.
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Link to Global Political... nice article about the comeback in debtor prisons
Photo credit Global Political
H/t: Pewsitter
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