Michael Edwards
The recent story of breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay being thrown in prison for a $280 medical bill that was sent in error has thankfully gone viral. It has brought much-needed attention to the insanity of reinstating the concept of debtors prisons.
Debtors prisons have a sordid history that was thought to be best left behind in Medieval Europe and in Charles Dickens' fictionalized accounts of the 19th-century hellholes of Victorian England.
America was not to be outdone, however, debtors prisons were widespread in the United States as well, and stories of the conditions in New York's debtors prisons could make one question if repayment of debts was really the purpose; violent criminals were much better clothed and fed. In fact, history shows that terror and slavery have always had a close relationship with debt, and it follows a path from the Romans right through to 17th-century England, and into America from English common law. However, America chose to abolish her debtors prisons a full 36 years before England; first in New York in 1831, and by 1833 the rest of the America had followed.(1)
Debtors prisons have a sordid history that was thought to be best left behind in Medieval Europe and in Charles Dickens' fictionalized accounts of the 19th-century hellholes of Victorian England.
America was not to be outdone, however, debtors prisons were widespread in the United States as well, and stories of the conditions in New York's debtors prisons could make one question if repayment of debts was really the purpose; violent criminals were much better clothed and fed. In fact, history shows that terror and slavery have always had a close relationship with debt, and it follows a path from the Romans right through to 17th-century England, and into America from English common law. However, America chose to abolish her debtors prisons a full 36 years before England; first in New York in 1831, and by 1833 the rest of the America had followed.(1)
Now, debtors prisons seem to be making a comeback in America.
An article in the Star Tribune in Minnesota titled, "In jail for being in debt," exposes the growing number of citizens going to jail at the behest of banks and a welcoming judicial system. They write:
An article in the Star Tribune in Minnesota titled, "In jail for being in debt," exposes the growing number of citizens going to jail at the behest of banks and a welcoming judicial system. They write:
It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found.
In our modern era of debt servitude, a PR Push has been designed to reintroduce a serious discussion of debtors' prisons as a sound solution. What goes beyond alarming is that the full-fledged return of debtors prisons might be seen as both appropriately terrifying, as well as a profitable investment opportunity and politically sound decision to be made by state governments struggling with their own looming bankruptcies, and a Federal government struggling politically with the concept of a jobless recovery that is not materializing.
A de facto debtors prison has already been largely accepted in the case of "deadbeat" parents when a failure to pay child support puts them in civil contempt of court. It is this civil contempt charge that is now beginning to take on an expanded definition to include those who owe for much smaller infractions. When a court order to pay a debt is issued and ignored, it then qualifies as a civil contempt of court. At that point, the judge becomes a literal dictator with the ability to imprison a person indefinitely for the violation. The Constitution explicitly prohibits incarceration for failure to pay debts, but it is the violation of a court order that gives judges free rein to impose draconian punishments. In this way, an end-run around the Constitution can become frighteningly commonplace.(2)
America already has a record-high ratio of people in prison, with no signs of the trend reversing as private corporations like Wackenhut Corporation, referred to as a "Free Market in Human Misery," have long been enlisted to turn government directives into shareholder profit. One might even deign to call it blatant fascism in its purest form, as government legislation leads offenders directly into private company coffers. The prison-industrial complex has already capitalized on government actions like The War on Drugs. A prime example is how The California Correctional Peace Officers Association helped fuel the prison-building boom as a cozy relationship was established on Capitol Hill through influence peddling.(3)
Profiting from the suffering of the poor while bailouts and bonuses await the over-leveraged banksters, car companies, and state governments, sets up a prison-industrial complex with a class warfare component that is the domestic mirror of the military-industrial complex sent abroad. This domestic prison system seems to be the only industry left to build upon, and it is here that things become truly frightening. For the federally-owned prison system complex, Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR), more incarceration means a growing supply of cheap labor and a skewing of unemployment numbers, as these inmates are often doing jobs they couldn't even find if they were job hunting on the outside. But it is the private prison system, with its web fully woven throughout the U.S. government, that stands to profit the most from the return of debtors' admission.(4)
The largest private prison conglomerate in the U.S. is Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which controls more than 47% of all private prison and jail beds nationwide and is able to produce a 13-15% return annually on new real estate investments. Wackenhut (now subsumed into G4S, the largest security company in the world) was of course started by an FBI agent, George Wackenhut, who is famous for developing millions of dossiers on America's "potential subversives" in the sixties, and was exposed as being an integral player within the shadow CIA.(5)
These major security conglomerates are at the top of a growing pyramid of for-profit, international detention center operators that has Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs simply fawning over the solid, long-term investment potential. Similar to war, when there is a profit to be made off of incarceration, only more incarceration can be expected to follow. The U.S. government certainly seems to be working hard to ensure that the numbers of poor continue to increase, as they are well aware that that programs designed to help the downtrodden are an abject failure every time.
The massive government debts that must be repaid directly into the hands of the Federal Reserve-led banking cabal must lead us to an inescapable conclusion: More money is to be made from slavery in the United States, than from freedom.
The massive government debts that must be repaid directly into the hands of the Federal Reserve-led banking cabal must lead us to an inescapable conclusion: More money is to be made from slavery in the United States, than from freedom.
Other Articles Cited
1. Jill Lepore, "I.O.U. - How We Used to Treat Our Debtors," The New Yorker (April 13, 2009): 35.
2. Wendy McElroy, http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2229
3. Seth Sandronsky, http://www.counterpunch.org/sandronsky05032005.html
4. Christian Parenti, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=852
5. John Connolly, "Inside the Shadow CIA," SPY Magazine (September, 1992): Volume 6.
Read other articles by Michael Edwards here.
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22 comments:
in addition to all our manufacturing jobs being outsourced outside the country and most jobs no longer even paying a sustaining wage; this country is becoming more fascist and totalitarian all the time. i encourage all young men and women to refuse military service. this evil system is unworthy of your protection and allegiance.
Thank you for your comments. Unfortunately, the military mission is being completely warped. The military man or woman is normally a brave soul, but they are trained to be completely non-thinking. When the leaders become corrupt and totally criminal, then so too right down the line. And, I agree, the state of the military and what they are currently supporting should be refused.
This is a clear path of the future. I witnessed how this is done. I was literally set up and harassed by cyber stalkers with a big brother mindset into filing a lawsuit in San Diego for defamation and emotional distress. (I'm from San Francisco). The harassment happened over 3 years and continues to this day. I was a singer trying to start a career back then.
The cyberstalker dumped his attorney who knew he was guilty and went directly to Judge Robert Longstreth with his perjurious claims in another jurisdiction where the suite was filed. The judge was brutally political and acted as the Defendant's attorney since he was in pro per. The judge threatened me with consequences for my lawsuit and demanded I withdraw everything after I refused to remove the case to his court.
After I dismissed the case due to an additional person I didn't have a DOES for, I was further "punished" by a court ordered judgment to pay his attorney's fees. Yet this man is guilty! He is still harassing me and my busineses and I have new evidence of that fact. It was a cyberstalking operation.
The gov't essentially used criminal cyber stalkers to provocateur and set me up to file a lawsuit to financially benefit the local legal community. The judges acted brutally towards me as a notary public and legal document assistant, simply because another person was involved in the dispute. They issued sanctions over a discovery request of $2,400 and legal fees for a man largely in pro per, in the thousands of dollars.
It is clear I was set up by a criminal court system in San Diego. Judge Longstreth is now in the family court division in San Diego. This was criminal as this judge envisioned severe consequences for my filing a lawsuit against the defendant. They set up a "secret off calendar" hearing a month after the case was dismissed to award legal fees in a court judgment.
I recently won a judgment in San Francisco for $25,000 against another cyber stalker who also set me up as a big brother kind of operation. These cyber stalkers are acting as provocateurs on behalf of the government to imprison and disarm Americans. The gov't is criminal. The gov't is clearly acting in a criminal manner with visions of debtor prisons for judgments. This is a dictatorship of judges forming.
Sorry for the VERY late response. Thanks for sharing your story. You said it perfectly: A dictatorship of judges. Be well -- Michael Edwards
Thanks Michael, this is scary stuff. These judges are really doing whatever they want.
Thank you for the comment Cheryl. Have to keep an eye on these judges -- there is a lot of money at stake, and we know what that can lead to. -- M.E.
Another element to all this is that corporations are obtaining cheap labor from prison occupants at 25 cents an hour. Debtors prisons arising forces people into slave labor into these systems.
Instead of shipping American jobs overseas, corporations see it even more profitable to use prison labor. This is a sad day in America how we're all being manipulated. Sounds like Nazi Germany all over again.
Yes, exactly. So, naturally, there would be an incentive to increase the prison population, correct? And so we see incarceration rates that are the highest in the world.
Thanks again. M.E.
How can you not mention the war on drugs in this article? Its the bread,butter,meat AND potatoes of the prison industrial complex as we all know.
Get caught with 'too much dope' and you will do 30 years of slave labor (depending on which judge you get or what state you live in).
Your a complete idiot!!!! And no need to thank me
Thank you.
The footnoted text says that debtors' prisons were abolished by 1833. But the sign in the graphic says that there was a remodel in 1842 for it to serve as a debtors' prison.
It's well away from the point of the essay, but as a point of historical accuracy, when did that practice really cease?
Here in Clark County Washington, where right on the courthouse steps a plaque declares the county to be under maritime law, all the judges on the county bench are vested investors in the private jail labor setup that's going on and for each county jail inmate that corporation sees something like $75 per inmate per day! One would think there to be a conflict of interest somewhere in there, would they not? Not under maritime law I am told... The system has reached the point of being the most dangerous "thing" for every citizen's well being! I naively use to think telling the truth in court or to a cop (on misdemeanor crap) was noble. HAH! It's moronic in the first degree! Don't even say "hello" to a cop, it gives them reason to reply while at the same time suspect you for whatever and hem you up. Costing at the minimum your time or potentially you doing time! It is us vs. them in their world people need to start looking at it through the same goggles!
I am on disability, I owe a lot in past medical bills. I am being harassed on a more than daily basis by one collection agency. I am about to have even more surgery. I do not have the money to pay them at this time and will not be able to scape together enough to pay them for a while and I worry all the time about when they'll be able to haul me off to jail for it. At the rate this country is going, with privatizing prisons on the agendas all over the place,I have no doubt that we'll have debtors prisons in no time if we as a nation do not stand up and fight back.
What is happening in this country is pitifully horrifying. But what's even more outrageous is still the public's overall ignorance or apathy to this growing menace. The people posting on this blog are smart, but most Americans are dumber than a box of rocks!
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted--and you create a nation of law-breakers--and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."-Atlas Shrugged
I know I broke at least 10 traffic laws today.If you can't pay, the fines easily qudrupple by the time it goes to collections and you can now be arrested for even riding a bycicle while suspended, more fines, more arrests because you have to travel somehow..another slave for the courts in perpetuity. That's what you get when you give up your rights for privileges just to be "safe". You get neither liberty nor safety.
http://shanghaiist.com/2010/07/26/chinas_middle_class_will_reach_700.php
China's Middle Class to be 700 million by 2020, while our USA middle class has been shrinking since the 1980s. USA population is now 330 million. The working, professsional, and skilled people who compose the Middle Class are the economic engine of any country. This is why China is growing their middle class. But why are we shrinking our middle class?
It's not all a bed of roses for China, their pop. is not growing and they are using their resources, ie Water at an unsustainable rate. Rivers and aquifers are being depleted. Poor agri practices are leading to soil depletion which leads to poor crop yields, dust bowls and crop failures. This leads to social unrest. Hungry people are easily pissed off. This will escalated and China has WAY to many people to be dealt with in a reasonable fashion, so expect some form of government "remediation" of the situation.....
ALEC has been working with state legislatures to develop model legislation aiding the private prison corporations. Once enough of the population is in confinement, you will see a return of jobs to America. CCA will be taking the place of the Chinese factory dormitory.
Back in 2010, the ACLU put out a great report on this which includes recommendation. More specifically, their analysis deals with usury fines charged by the courts which, many times, are then managed by for profit private probation corporations and how it all spirals out of control to the detriment of those caught up in this web of greed and incompentence and to the average taxpayer who foots the bill for it all.
IN FOR A PENNY
The Rise of America’s New Debtors’ Prisons
http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/InForAPenny_web.pdf#page=82
Anonymous May 17 2011, don't insult rocks, they are neither dumb or evil.
Drugs are in the food, air and water or at least toxic chemicals. This seems to domesticate the population and ready them for the slaughter. But everything that goes around comes around. With a militant culture, drugged, domesticated and obviously slowed to a crawl it is taking longer than usual to stir up a revolution but a revolution is coming. When people realize that their bellies are empty and there is no hope in sight and they have nothing left to loose...
Well welcome violent revolution ala French style. It will be easily determined that those with lots of money are the criminals and like ants overtaken a victim much large than itself, the ants will devour them.
Heads will be rolling and the time is soon.
How to stop a Debt Collection Agency: You must respond to the first letter they send you that gives you 30 days to deny their claim. Answer that first letter with a Certified, Return Receipt letter that denies their "Presentment". Simply say you do not owe them any money and that they must prove that a signed contract exists between yourself and "XYZ" credit agency. They can not do this. When you challenge their Presentment all collection activity must stop until they meet YOUR DEMAND. Collection agencies are a third part to the debt. They have no contract with you UNLESS you dishonor their Presentment by not answering their letter. Then you enter into an IMPLIED Contract and they have you.
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