In the process, we were lowering our standards for what constituted an offense deserving of imprisonment, and, more broadly, we were losing our sense of how serious, how truly serious, it is to incarcerate. Feb. 8, 2015) [hereinafter Complaint, Jenkins v. Jennings], http://equaljusticeunderlaw.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Complaint-Jennings-Debtors-Prisons-FILE-STAMPED.pdf [http://perma.cc/LM7S-LZW2]. J. Pub. for the support of a spouse or dependent children, or for the support of an illegitimate child or children, or for alimony . I, 22; Iowa Const. The ACLU charges that DeKalb County and the for-profit company Judicial Corrections Services teamed up to engage in a coercive debt collection scheme that focuses on revenue generation at the expense of protecting poor people's rights. Bearden v. Laws 941, 1152 (to be codified at Mo. Indeed, based upon the state-by-state abolition of debtors prisons in the nineteenth century, the bans highlight the self-determination of states within the federalist structure. 1999) (The [creditors] are free to collect the judgment by execution, garnishment, or any other available lawful means so long as it does not include imprisonment.). once we encounter involuntary manslaughter, other crimes of negligence, and various statutory offenses). Mo. (9 Allen) 489 (1864)). At the same time, however, legal commentators have been concerned about imprisonment for criminal debt since at least the 1960s. Read More. at 367. II, 40(3), para. ^ E.g., In re Nichols, 749 So. How debt can lead to prison - Vox In 2016, the ACLU of Maine helped to secure the passage of LD 1639, which includes a critical provision to help curb debtors prisons. ^ Id. The statute seems to have provided for a Bearden-like inquiry: [N]o convicted person may be held in contempt for failure to repay if he shows that his default was not attributable to an intentional refusal to obey the order of the court or to a failure on his part to make a good faith effort to make the payment. ^ Id. ^ Complaint, Cleveland v. Montgomery, supra note 14, at 2; see Stillman, supra note 11. The report documents the routine jailing of poor people across the state solely for their failure to pay court-imposed fines and fees.
