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Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

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Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#71

Post by giancarlostoro »

duxup wrote: post #46
dpau wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it sad to see this type of argument, increasingly it seems our only justification for the decline of the US is, "At least we're not as bad as X." As in, "Sure companies and the gov sell all our data, but at least we're not like China!". Feels like we've given up even trying to live up to our liberal Western ideals...

It's not a justification for anything. It is a response providing perspective to questions like "but are we much better?"

Agreed, and I should of elaborated: sure we're worse in the case of incarceration, but our legal system is still way better than in other countries.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#72

Post by toasterlovin »

axlee wrote: post #63
toasterlovin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see several comments complaining about the US incarceration rate without mentioning the US crime rate. You can’t credibly assert that the US incarceration rate is too high without knowing how it compares to the crime rate.

A high crime rate is a telltale sign of a dysfunctional society, anyway. Something is rotten.

The US does not have the same class structure as most developed nations. We have 40 million black Americans who are descended from slaves and faced legal discrimination up until the mid-1960s. This population makes up a disproportionate share of our prison population. Since then, a second extremely large ethnic underclass had immigrated across the US’s southern border. This population also makes up a disproportionate share of our prison population. As far as I am aware, this is unique among developed western nations.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#73

Post by fenomas »

rayiner wrote: post #45
romwell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potato potato, that person would not have been in prison had they paid off the debt . Where the debt comes from matters why exactly? The prison should be for one purpose only: to make society safer. If someone is dangerous enough to be in prison, they should not be out regardless of whether they owe money or not. In other words, if you can't buy your way out of prison, a debt should not bring you into one.

> Potato potato, that person would not have been in prison had they paid off the debt. No. The meaning of words matters. Words, used precisely, are how people with different values and beliefs can communicate and reach agreements in a functioning society. When journalists, who are supposed to inform and educate the public, twist the meaning of words in order to make a point, that’s wrong. > Where the debt comes from…

> The meaning of words matters.

Sure, and (unless wikipedia is lying) the words "debtor's prison" have for centuries included the imprisonment of people unable to pay court-ordered judgments, as well as private debts. Per that definition, the article's usage is correct.

(You can certainly make the argument that the situation described in the article doesn't meet the specific "contractual obligation" language in the EuCHR's definition, but that has nothing to do with your claim that the article is misleading people.)

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#74

Post by crusty »

rayiner wrote: post #45
romwell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potato potato, that person would not have been in prison had they paid off the debt . Where the debt comes from matters why exactly? The prison should be for one purpose only: to make society safer. If someone is dangerous enough to be in prison, they should not be out regardless of whether they owe money or not. In other words, if you can't buy your way out of prison, a debt should not bring you into one.

> Potato potato, that person would not have been in prison had they paid off the debt. No. The meaning of words matters. Words, used precisely, are how people with different values and beliefs can communicate and reach agreements in a functioning society. When journalists, who are supposed to inform and educate the public, twist the meaning of words in order to make a point, that’s wrong. > Where the debt comes from…

"Though in arrears on fines and court fees, many didn’t need to pay restitution at all—at least 20 percent of them were convicted of drug possession."

This whole line of argument about the use of the term debtors' prison not being accurate because of the circumstances of this one individual, as if her situation were the only being considered is so useless. Stop trying to detail the focus with the distraction. She was one example. People are thrown into those prisons (and simply indebtedness in general in other states) simply for being unable to pay arbitrary fines and fees. That she also got sent to that prison for a debt does not make it no longer a debtors' prison,

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#75

Post by fzeroracer »

rayiner wrote: post #36

> A judge sentenced Husband to the restitution center in 2015 to pay off almost $13,000 she owed from an embezzlement conviction in 2009. > The State of Mississippi had locked Husband into a modern-day debtors prison. Let’s agree that this sort of punishment is potentially not conducive to restorative justice. But what justification is there for the article to deceive the reader with a comparison to debtors prisons?…

Words do matter and you are writing a deliberately deceitful post here trying to shy away from the fact that this is a debtors prison, full stop.

Once someone has been released from prison they have fulfilled their obligation to society. Sentencing them to prison again solely because they owe money from a previous sentence is a perversion of justice and an absolute farce. They are sent to prison because they owe a monetary debt.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#76

Post by geofft »

rayiner wrote: post #45
romwell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potato potato, that person would not have been in prison had they paid off the debt . Where the debt comes from matters why exactly? The prison should be for one purpose only: to make society safer. If someone is dangerous enough to be in prison, they should not be out regardless of whether they owe money or not. In other words, if you can't buy your way out of prison, a debt should not bring you into one.

> Potato potato, that person would not have been in prison had they paid off the debt. No. The meaning of words matters. Words, used precisely, are how people with different values and beliefs can communicate and reach agreements in a functioning society. When journalists, who are supposed to inform and educate the public, twist the meaning of words in order to make a point, that’s wrong. > Where the debt comes from…

> Women who murder their abusive husbands, for example, are almost never going to go and murder someone else. By your reasoning, they shouldn’t go to prison to punish them for their murder.

Yes, correct, thanks for setting out that argument. The organization Survived and Punished advocates for exactly this, because the argument you're making is sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survived_and_Punished https://survivedandpunished.org/

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#77

Post by geofft »

klipt wrote: post #66
a_t48 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women who murder their abusive husbands, for example, are almost never going to go and murder someone else. By your reasoning, they shouldn’t go to prison to punish them for their murder. That's a reasonable position to take, actually. Depends on the level of abuse, I'd say. https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/07/europe/uk-sally-challen-intl-...

The thing is, jail also acts as a deterrent to the first murder. If it's common knowledge that everyone gets one "murder your abusive spouse" consequence free, a lot more people might commit murders in cases where a divorce might have worked out better and less deadly.

Then that's about jail as a deterrent (making society safer by discouraging future crimes), not as a form of punishment for someone who did a bad thing.

It may be true that the deterrent is justifiable because it's also a legitimate form of punishment (for instance, saying "If anyone kills their spouse this year, I'll skin this puppy alive" might be a deterrent, but it's probably unjust), but it's not acting as punishment alone.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#78

Post by dpau »

duxup wrote: post #46
dpau wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it sad to see this type of argument, increasingly it seems our only justification for the decline of the US is, "At least we're not as bad as X." As in, "Sure companies and the gov sell all our data, but at least we're not like China!". Feels like we've given up even trying to live up to our liberal Western ideals...

It's not a justification for anything. It is a response providing perspective to questions like "but are we much better?"

There's nothing wrong with comparisons. I just wonder why we started comparing ourselves with the worst rather than the best.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#79

Post by fzeroracer »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #20
Nextgrid wrote: post #7

The more I read about "justice" in the US the more I realise how fucked up and perverted the concept of justice is in that country. We're always quick to criticise other countries for the failings or bad design of their justice system and lack of respect for human rights, but are we much better? We might be better on paper, but is that actually reflected in reality? I'm not so sure.

If you get convicted for embezzlement , as in the first example in the article, and don't pay your fines and restitution, what do you think the courts should do?

So let's expand that out.

Every crime has a monetary value. Once someone has gone to prison and paid their debt to society, is there any good reason according to you that we shouldn't then throw them in another prison until they pay restitution?

Hell, maybe it's even a good thing that silcon valley could disrupt. Let's have companies skim a bit off the top and build smart prisons. They get to spend longer in debtor prison and others earn more money, it's a win/win.

Re: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

#80

Post by SamReidHughes »

fzeroracer wrote: post #75
rayiner wrote: post #36

> A judge sentenced Husband to the restitution center in 2015 to pay off almost $13,000 she owed from an embezzlement conviction in 2009. > The State of Mississippi had locked Husband into a modern-day debtors prison. Let’s agree that this sort of punishment is potentially not conducive to restorative justice. But what justification is there for the article to deceive the reader with a comparison to debtors prisons?…

Words do matter and you are writing a deliberately deceitful post here trying to shy away from the fact that this is a debtors prison, full stop. Once someone has been released from prison they have fulfilled their obligation to society. Sentencing them to prison again solely because they owe money from a previous sentence is a perversion of justice and an absolute farce. They are sent to prison because they owe a mo…

When they've been released from prison and paid their fines and restitution money, they've fulfilled their obligation to society.
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