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Stuart G

(38,365 posts)
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 08:27 AM Apr 2013

Report: Ohio is Illegally Throwing People in Jail for Oweing Money: Think Progress

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/04/05/1829601/ohio-debtors-prison/

Think Progress:

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Apr 5, 2013 at 5:30 pm


The Americans Civil Liberties Union on Friday revealed that courts in Ohio are illegally throwing poor people in jail for being unable to pay off a debt.

In a report titled, “The Outskirts of Hope,” (PDF) the ACLU shines a light on a harrowing “debtors’ prison” system in Ohio — one that violates both the United States’ and the Ohio constitution. Ohioans are being jailed for “as small as a few hundred dollars,” despite the constitutional violation, and the economic evidence that it costs the state more to pay for their jail sentence than the amount of the debt.

In its report, the ACLU details the stories of several people sent to debtors’ prison. Jack Dawley owed $1,500 in “fines and costs in the Norwalk Municipal Court,” and was behind on child support payments, leading the Ohio courts to send him to prison in Wisconsin for 3 and a half years. He still struggles with trying to repay the fines. Another victim of the system, single mother Tricia Metcalf, was taken to jail each and every time she wasn’t able to make her $50-a-month payments on fines for writing bad checks. Megan Sharp, whose husband is currently in jail on overdue fines, was unable to pay $300 in fines for driving on a suspended license and went to jail for 10 days. When she got out, she owed $200 more on top of the original amount. Both she and her husband are unemployed.
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Jim__

(14,045 posts)
1. "... leading the Ohio courts to send him to prison in Wisconsin for 3 and a half years."
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 09:07 AM
Apr 2013

What does that mean? Is Ohio sentencing him to a prison that's located in Wisconsin? Is Ohio paying for his incarceration? Is this a private prison? If it's a private prison, my guess is that this is another case of our corpocracy run amok.

Stuart G

(38,365 posts)
2. Corporations have often done things that are illegal..
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 09:16 AM
Apr 2013

Sending someone to jail for oweing some money...not new, just very sad..

 

YarnAddict

(1,850 posts)
6. This isn't about corporations
Sun Apr 7, 2013, 11:10 AM
Apr 2013

it's the govt. Fines, back child support, etc. I think there have always been jail sentence involved for not paying that sort of thing.

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