Jail time for debt (the return of debtors prison)

[Sensia]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1...n_1144093.html

What was found unconstitutional years ago has now made a comeback, and many states are looking to find ways to make money through throwing debtors in jail and extracting court fees, jail fees, and anything else they can. In fact these states have now started working with some very large debt collection agencies.
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Some Illinois residents struggling to pay off their debt have yet another thing to worry about: getting thrown in jail.



As WBEZ reports, creditors in the state have figured out ways around laws that prevent them from putting debtors in jail, and the number of people being issued arrest warrants linked to unpaid bills is growing. Collection agencies can reportedly file a lawsuit requiring a court appearance, and if the defendant doesn't show up for their hearing, an arrest warrant can be issued.



The practice has been happening more often in a stagnant economy, and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan wants to do something about it.
"We can no longer allow debt collectors to pervert the courts," Madigan told the Wall Street Journal, adding that some victims of this practice were thrown in jail without knowing that they were being sued due to misleading or sloppy paperwork submitted to the court by debt collectors.



NPR spoke to one Illinois woman who was shocked to learn that a warrant was out for her arrest:
Take, for example, what happened to Robin Sanders in Illinois. She was driving home when an officer pulled her over for having a loud muffler. But instead of sending her off with a warning, the officer arrested Sanders, and she was taken right to jail.


"That's when I found out [that] I had a warrant for failure to appear in Macoupin County. And I didn't know what it was about."


Sanders owed $730 on a medical bill. She says she didn't even know a collection agency had filed a lawsuit against her.
Vivian Joy, 53, told the Wall Street Journal she was handcuffed and taken to jail in Champaign, Ill. over a $2,200 debt to Champaign Heights Finance Corp.
"They cuffed me in front of my kids. That was terrifying," Joy, who is unemployed, told the paper. She said she was unaware of a lawsuit or arrest warrant until she was pulled over for a broken taillight.



Kevin Kelly with the Illinois Creditors Bar Association told WBEZ that creditors don't want to send people to jail, but feel they have no other options.
"So we’ve got five notices that have already gone out either by personally serving them or that have gone out by mail, five separate notices. And we’ve received absolutely no response to any of them. I’m not certain what more we can do," he told the station
"We hear time and again from the legal aid lawyers who ultimately find out often about these people when they're in jail that people didn't even know there was a lawsuit against them, let alone a judgment had been entered," Madigan told WBEZ. Her office is investigating agencies that may be abusing the law, and said judges need to be fully aware of debtors' rights before such hearings.

Madigan said such practices could lead to modern-day debtors' prisons, and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation hopes to ban the practice altogether next year.

Arrest warrants for debtors are "flourishing statewide," Madigan told the Wall Street Journal, but Illinois is not alone. The paper reports that judges in nine counties across the country have signed off on 5,000 debt-related warrants since 2010.

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A 2010 report by the American Civil Liberties Union that focused on only five states -- Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington -- found that people were being jailed at "increasingly alarming rates" over legal debts. Cases ranged from a woman who was arrested four separate times for failing to pay $251 in fines and court costs related to a fourth-degree misdemeanor conviction, to a mentally ill juvenile jailed by a judge over a previous conviction for stealing school supplies. Link Jailed for $280.00

Also see news link: Return of Debtors Prison

[Sensia]

Some states also apply "poverty penalties," including late fees, payment plan fees, and interest when people are unable to pay all their debts at once, according to a report by the New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. Alabama charges a 30 percent collection fee, for instance, while Florida allows private debt collectors to add a 40 percent surcharge on the original debt. Some Florida counties also use so-called collection courts, where debtors can be jailed but have no right to a public defender.

"Many states are imposing new and often onerous 'user fees' on individuals with criminal convictions," the authors of the Brennan Center report wrote. "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."

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This is the information I found for the state of Texas: Unsecured debt laws in Texas Apparently they cannot take money that is from Social Security payments, disability etc. and a debtor can ask a judge to exclude that income from collection.

[i'va biggen]

the return of scrooge,

[nwarounder]

It's a very common misconception that if SCOTUS rules something constitutional or unconstitutional it is therefore the law of the land. It is NOT. State's choose to ignore federal laws, SCOTUS, and POTUS all the time. Look at abortion, legalizing pot, Obamacare, and the list goes on and on.

That said, I don't think prison is appropriate in this case, but saying SCOTUS declared it unconstitutional means nothing. As always, people can move from any state if they don't like it's laws, or stay and vote to remove them from office.

[Guest032516]

This is much ado about nothing.

You cannot be put in jail for not having money. These people are being jailed for failing to appear in court in response to a summons.

That may sound like a technicality, but it is not. Everyone is entitled to their day in court, even the debt collectors. It is all part of due process.

The solution for these people is to show up and say "I've got no money". Let a judgment be entered against them. Then let the collection agency try to collect.

But you won't go to jail. Jail comes in from ignoring the court proceeding.

Many of these people, like the lady with the $730 debt, are simply ignoring the collection agencies and the summonses. Perhaps they believe they will simply go away. Generally, they won't.

If the debtor has a job, the collection agencies will garnish his or her wages, even if it is $20 a week until all $730 is paid off.

It doesn't help the debt collector if you go to jail. You can't pay them then, either.

Not all debtors are deadbeats, but many certainly are. Jail is used as leverage to force the deadbeat to show up in court and accept a judgment against him.

But deadbeats think they can avoid having their wages garnished or their car or other property seized by simply ignoring the courts.

They are finding out that they cannot.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

This is much ado about nothing.

You cannot be put in jail for not having money. These people are being jailed for failing to appear in court in response to a summons.

That may sound like a technicality, but it is not. Everyone is entitled to their day in court, even the debt collectors. It is all part of due process.

The solution for these people is to show up and say "I've got no money". Let a judgment be entered against them. Then let the collection agency try to collect.

But you won't go to jail. Jail comes in from ignoring the court proceeding.

Many of these people, like the lady with the $730 debt, are simply ignoring the collection agencies and the summonses. Perhaps they believe they will simply go away. Generally, they won't.

If the debtor has a job, the collection agencies will garnish his or her wages, even if it is $20 a week until all $730 is paid off.

It doesn't help the debt collector if you go to jail. You can't pay them then, either.

Not all debtors are deadbeats, but many certainly are. Jail is used as leverage to force the deadbeat to show up in court and accept a judgment against him.

But deadbeats think they can avoid having their wages garnished or their car or other property seized by simply ignoring the courts.

They are finding out that they cannot.

Why the fuc does the government have to side with the person that loans the money? Why not let the two parties work it out in say Civil Court? Don't loan money tp people that can not pay it back or consider that part of the cost of doing business. Why does the government always side with the money changers....Jesus knew better than to.

[nwarounder]

Originally Posted by WTF

Why the fuc does the government have to side with the person that loans the money? Why not let the two parties work it out in say Civil Court? Don't loan money tp people that can not pay it back or consider that part of the cost of doing business. Why does the government always side with the money changers....Jesus knew better than to.

"The government" is not siding with the companies that lend money. County judges with upcoming elections are siding with the companies that lend money. County judges are elected officials and money is tight in the bluest state in the land, Illinois. They gotta do what they gotta do.

[Randy4Candy]

Good ol' Private Enterprise coupled with government on the cheap. Priceless!

[Sensia]

Originally Posted by ExNYer

This is much ado about nothing.

You cannot be put in jail for not having money. These people are being jailed for failing to appear in court in response to a summons.

That may sound like a technicality, but it is not. Everyone is entitled to their day in court, even the debt collectors. It is all part of due process.

The solution for these people is to show up and say "I've got no money". Let a judgment be entered against them. Then let the collection agency try to collect.

But you won't go to jail. Jail comes in from ignoring the court proceeding.

Many of these people, like the lady with the $730 debt, are simply ignoring the collection agencies and the summonses. Perhaps they believe they will simply go away. Generally, they won't.

If the debtor has a job, the collection agencies will garnish his or her wages, even if it is $20 a week until all $730 is paid off.

It doesn't help the debt collector if you go to jail. You can't pay them then, either.

Not all debtors are deadbeats, but many certainly are. Jail is used as leverage to force the deadbeat to show up in court and accept a judgment against him.

But deadbeats think they can avoid having their wages garnished or their car or other property seized by simply ignoring the courts.

They are finding out that they cannot.

Apparently that is not the case of ignoring summons or court papers there seems to be fraud involved on the courts and "sewer services" is what is occurring. See link Sewer service

[cptjohnstone]

Originally Posted by Randy4Candy

Good ol' Private Enterprise coupled with government on the cheap. Priceless!

I take back everything I have said about you working the night shift and McD's, you work for the government but what agency has a night shift?

you must drive a Dart bus

[I B Hankering]

The government has been locking-up "Dead Beat Dads" for years. Few were complaining.
http://www.ajc.com/news/cobb/jail-for-child-support-778271.html


More than a third of U.S. states allow borrowers to be jailed for non payment of debts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by nwarounder

It's a very common misconception that if SCOTUS rules something constitutional or unconstitutional it is therefore the law of the land. It is NOT. State's choose to ignore federal laws, SCOTUS, and POTUS all the time. Look at abortion, legalizing pot, Obamacare, and the list goes on and on.

That said, I don't think prison is appropriate in this case, but saying SCOTUS declared it unconstitutional means nothing. As always, people can move from any state if they don't like it's laws, or stay and vote to remove them from office.

Strictly speaking, it's debatable whether SCOTUS even has the authority to determine which laws are constitutional; the authority is not in the Constitution. Judicial review was first practiced in 1803 in Marbury v Madison. The Supreme Court has been reviewing laws, passed by Congress, and giving approval or overturning, for 209 years based on the precedent of this one ruling.

An excerpt from an article from "The Claremont Institute":

As Levin shows, the U.S. Constitution makes absolutely no mention of the concept of judicial review. The Constitution simply specifies that in cases of conflict between state and federal law, the federal law was supreme in every circumstance. Marbury v. Madison was not a judicial ruling based on a clear understanding of the law, Levin argues, but a bitter personal struggle between political opponents. The ironic tragedy of this mistaken ruling was that it mired the Court ever more deeply in partisan political struggles, which Levin traces throughout subsequent American history down to the present day.

http://www.claremont.org/publication...pub_detail.asp

[Randy4Candy]

Originally Posted by cptjohnstone

I take back everything I have said about you working the night shift and McD's, you work for the government but what agency has a night shift?

you must drive a Dart bus

None of the above....but keep trying to stretch that green pea serving as your brain.

[IIFFOFRDB]

Originally Posted by Randy4Candy

None of the above....but keep trying to stretch that green pea serving as your brain.

cptjohn, this fuck obviously profits from Obitchfucks policies...fuckem