Here is a tale that sounds like it comes right from the pages of “Little Dorrit,” Charles Dickens’s scathing indictment of Victorian England’s debtors’ prisons. Unfortunately, it is happening in 21st-century America.
Edwina Nowlin, a poor Michigan resident, was ordered to reimburse a juvenile detention center $104 a month for holding her 16-year-old son. When she explained to the court that she could not afford to pay, Ms. Nowlin was sent to prison. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which helped get her out last week after she spent 28 days behind bars, says it is seeing more people being sent to jail because they cannot make various court-ordered payments. That is both barbaric and unconstitutional.
Barbaric perhaps, but I don’t see how it would be unconstitutionally “cruel and unusual.” Debtors prisons were quite common and usual for a good many years, and still are in quite a few countries in the world.
It is my understanding that the practice of debtor’s prisons in the U.S. never really ended – they just changed the name/practice. If you do not pay your child support, you may end up in jail – how is that not a debtor’s prison?
Of course, it isn’t cruel and unusual. In a society where corporate thieves are honored with millions in bonuses, why not imprison someone who can’t pay? (By the way, one who refuses to pay child support isn’t exactly analogous to throwing a woman in prison for being unable to pay the state for imprisoning her son – I’m surprised the state isn’t charging her for her days in prison – well, maybe they will.)
But we do know that the poor are to blame for everything. If they weren’t around we wouldn’t have to think about them – and they certainly wouldn’t drain our limited reserves of compassion.
There is a difference between “cannot pay” and “refuse to pay” and that will be a tough call for the courts to make in some cases . If a person cannot pay, how does incarceration imprtove that ability?
If it is punishment for refusing to pay, I would have no problem with that concept.
Well said, Dan (#3). One of the few times I feel like I can applaud the ACLU for doing the right thing.
I just saw a court calendar in which a judge gave some folks days in jail, who couldn’t pay a $200 traffic citation, and others got 30 hours of community service for the same fine. He left the choice up to them. Community service seems to be a better punishment. How does sitting in jail solve anything related to a minor crime or traffic violation? #3, Mr. Crawford, as I tried to look through your sarcasm, I could not find any suggestion from you for a solution to the problem of refusal or inability to pay a debt? Irrespective of whether corporations that were given TARP money are “thieves” or not (don’t know what your evidence for that is other than class or wealth envy), what do you propose as a solution for debt to the government owed by a citizen (or alien)?
I’ve seen many people who claimed to be destitute come up with substantial bail money and pay parole fees when they had to do so. And they always pay off the bondsman. That’s after months and years of whining “I can’t pay”. Seeing this go on for the last 10 years has changed my attitude about “debtor’s prisons”.
Sure, there are individual cases you should consider, but, as in all of life, pity is a destructive, de-humanizing, uncharitable way to deal with people. It strips them of whatever dignity and self-respect they might have left. To tell someone “I know you can’t take responsibility for your life, so here’s a free pass” is demeaning.
There is a fine line between debt and contempt at times. Generally courts will hold hearings and not put someone in prison for failure to pay a court ordered debt once they make a showing a true inability. Most people get thrown in jail because they blew the judge off and he is not happy. If someone has been ordered to pay something like child support and then is unable to do so based upon change in circumstance then they need to proactively inform the judge (and better be able to show the change and that they did not cause it). My experience has been that judges think long and hard before throwing someone in jail over monetary issues.