[Pnews] Thousands of Americans jailed for debts chased by private collectors

[Prisoner News]

https://www.rt.com/usa/419494-debtor-jail-collectors-aclu/


  Thousands of Americans jailed for debts chased by private collectors

22 Feb, 2018
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An estimated 77 million Americans have a debt that has been transferred 
to a private collection agency. Thousands have ended up in jail over 
debts as small as $28, with African-Americans and Hispanics the most 
affected.

The findings come from a new report 
<https://www.aclu.org/report/pound-flesh-criminalization-private-debt>by 
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) spanning 26 states and Puerto 
Rico, published on Wednesday. The practice violates many US state and 
federal laws, which prohibit the jailing of debtors.

In one case cited in the report, a disabled woman who wears a prosthetic 
leg was shackled by her waist and feet by two armed US marshals before 
being put in jail overnight.

“/They had a warrant for my arrest and I asked them for what, he didn’t 
say what it was for. He said, ‘He’ll tell you later,/’” said Tracie 
Mozie of Dickinson, Texas.

Law enforcement officials had entered Mozie's bedroom to arrest her over 
a $1,500 federal student loan she took out in 1986 to pay for 
truck-driving school. The loan had mushroomed to $13,000 with interest 
and fees. Monzie was unable to pay because she is unemployed and lives 
on disability benefits.

The ACLU examined more than 1,000 cases in which civil court judges 
issued arrest warrants for debtors. In some instances the amounts were 
as small as $28. Letters were sent over bounced checks as low as $2, the 
ACLU found.

The report is the first ever to analyze the cooperation between courts 
and the private debt collection industry across the US, according to the 
ACLU. Private debt collectors use the criminal justice system to try to 
compel repayments, even when the debts are disputed or when the debtor 
cannot repay.  More than 6,000 debt collection firms operate in the 
United States, collecting billions of dollars each year.

Following their arrest, debtors may remain in jail for several days 
until they can pay the bail. In some cases, the ACLU found some people 
were locked up for as long as two weeks.

This practice violates the many state and federal laws as well as 
international human rights standards that prohibit the jailing of debtors.

**The report finds that the long-term consequences of arrests for both 
courts and people can be profound and scarring. Arrest warrants can be 
entered into background check databases which mean they can jeopardize 
future employment, housing applications, education, and access to 
security clearances.

In one case in Maryland, an elderly couple were jailed because they did 
not appear at a district court hearing for which they had never been 
served notice. Isaac, 83, and his wife Doris owed $2,342.76 to their 
homeowners’ association and $450 in attorney’s fees. They had never been 
served with notice of the hearing, which had itself been scheduled 
because they failed to appear at a post-judgment proceeding for which 
they also had never been served. While in detention, Isaac began 
vomiting blood and became non-responsive, according to the report.

While debtors’ prisons were outlawed by Congress almost two hundred 
years ago, in reality the practice seems to live on.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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