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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

#81

Post by geofft »

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?…

> The EU Convention on Human Rights bans debtors prisons. It states: "No one shall be deprived of his liberty merely on the ground of inability to fulfil a contractual obligation." Restitution as punishment for a crime does not arise out of a “contractual obligation.” It arises out of a criminal conviction.

Sure, but the Convention does not define the term "debtors' prison," however much you may want to imply that it does.

It merely says what you quoted; it says that this particular thing is a human right. It does not close the door to debtors' prisons that do not violate human rights but are still odious in civilized society; it certainly does not close the door to violations of human rights that are not enumerated in the Convention, perhaps because some party to the Convention wishes to continue violating human rights. The argument "Because the Convention doesn't ban it, it must not be a debtors' prison" is just as sound as saying "Because the 13th amendment doesn't ban it, it isn't slavery." Forced labor as punishment for a crime is permissible in the United States, and it's still slavery, of course.

The meaning of words matters, and a lawyer, of all people, ought to use words precisely when speaking about justice and imprisonment.

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

#82

Post by SamReidHughes »

fzeroracer wrote: post #79
SamReidHughes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Because she was skipping meetings with her probation officer, you can infer she hasn't paid her debt to society.

Not to mention, you know, the actual debt that she owed.

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

#83

Post by fzeroracer »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #82
fzeroracer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Because she was skipping meetings with her probation officer, you can infer she hasn't paid her debt to society. Not to mention, you know, the actual debt that she owed.

I don't care about the particulars of the individual and you focusing on that is clearly deliberate to avoid discussing the actual topic at hand.

What I'm talking about is that these sort of facilities shouldn't exist at all, full stop. Do you think that people that say, couldn't afford to pay their speeding ticket right away should be thrown into prison until they pay their debt?

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

#84

Post by RHSeeger »

crusty wrote: post #70
klipt wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I challenge you on "jail also acts as a deterrent to the first murder" as a cliched truism and again on "...a lot more people might commit murders..." - I mean really, you added the might because even you know you're just throwing BS against the proverbial wall.

I was under the impression that it was widely considered true that the threat of jail does act as a deterrent; and that it was longer jails times (doing more so) that was open to debate. Are you arguing that, if there was no jail time for anything at all, people would not commit more crimes?

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

#85

Post by rtpg »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #60
rtpg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage garnishing is easy? If you have an employer then now they are on the hook for following through as well. Hell, shut down the restitution centers and use that budget to help cover court fees instead! Think about it: if someone gets fined $10,000 and is working minimum wage, is there really anything good accomplished by trying to recover that much? Just cap out some wage garnishment scheme if you want to fine them…

The criminal has an actual victim who needs his money back. It's pretty important to him (or her) that he gets his money back. Maybe she could pay the restitution with the money she embezzled. She also skipped her meeting with her probation officer, more than once, and she didn't report to the probation officer (or the court, whatever) that she got an increase in income, when she got her job at Harrah's. Funny, that.…

- the fines are not merely around making victims whole. There’s also just fines as punishment on top of that

- even if they are just about that, do you think that a debtors prison is going to get that money back sooner?

- given how being broke in America is basically a death sentence, I have empathy for people trying to scrape by

- (now we’re in income reporting reform!) why isn’t Harrahs reporting the wage increase? Why even give opportunities for lies/mistakes/omissions?

Even if what you said is true, putting people in jail is not super ethical nor is it useful at accomplishing much for society, for the individuals involved, and “punishment as deference” is disproved so much.

Not seeing the argument for this programs continued existence

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

#86

Post by Zenbit_UX »

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…

> 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.

You're correct in that words do matter but entirely incorrect in your position, this is a debtors prison, it's literally in the name...

> Wiki: "A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt."

Also starting a reply with "No" makes you seem like an asshole and invalidates much of your credibility and people's desire to hear you out. The GP had a well reasoned (and correct) response to your original comment but you proceeded to devalue it with 2 letters.

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

#88

Post by Zenbit_UX »

paulddraper wrote: post #58
rubyn00bie wrote: post #40

Yeah, this is fucking insane, from top-to-bottom... left-to-right... inside-and-out... fucking insane. This is quite literally forced indentured servitude, or what I normally call "slavery." This is fucking slavery. At no point should one be forced to work before or after they've already paid their "debt" to society; extreme circumstances not withstanding (i.e. you still have a billion dollars after serving your time…

> At no point should be forced to work before or aftere they've already paid their "debt" to society Weird wording. The fact that the debt has not been paid is why they're working, no? My dad's accountant embezzled from his business. The person spent all the money over the years and by the the time they were caught, there was little left. And unfortunately, that's a pretty typical story. (FYI, business insurance may…

That really sucks for your dad and this may be hard for you to answer objectively given your proximity to the situation but imagine if the guy who robbed your dad got tossed into this place with $100k + court fees and maybe child support if he had kids.

At minimum wage pay, with ~20% of his earnings going to pay down the debt that's effectively a life sentence. My question to you is, does that seem fair for what is essentially a white collar, non-violent crime?

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

#89

Post by mendelmaleh »

geofft wrote: post #77
klipt wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 punis…

Aren't all punishments deterrents tho?

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

#90

Post by wutbrodo »

rtpg wrote: post #47
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?…

If you are fined $20,000 for a thing and are unable to pay, you end up in a prison and are forced to work off your debt. This is functionally what debtors prisons were used for From the wiki summary: > Destitute persons who were unable to pay a court-ordered judgment would be incarcerated in these prisons until they had worked off their debt via labour or secured outside funds to pay the balance

Huh, TIL, for some reason I always thought they were for general debt.
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