Colorado city to pay restitution to poor jailed in 'debtor prison'

[WhiteTara]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/colorado-city-pay-restitution-poor-jailed-debtor-prison-023641694.html?nhp=1

DENVER (Reuters) - The city of Colorado Springs has agreed to provide restitution to dozens of poor people wrongfully jailed because they could not afford to pay fines they incurred for petty infractions such as loitering or panhandling, attorneys said on Thursday.

The settlement calls for the city to pay each of some 60 named individuals $125 for every day they spent locked up under a since-repealed ordinance that allowed incarceration of offenders who failed to pay fines for otherwise non-jailable offenses.

The deal, providing for an estimated total payout of about $100,000, was announced in separate statements by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Colorado's second-largest city.

The case grew out of an ACLU study last year finding that despite the outlawing of so-called debtor prisons, judges in the city of 440,000 routinely converted fines into jail sentences, said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the group's Colorado chapter.

"We hope today's settlement sends a loud and clear message to municipal courts throughout the state to stop using jail or the threat of jail to collect debts from persons who are too poor to pay," Silverstein said in a statement.

[surrealAmerican]

1. Do the fines get waived as well?

... or were they nullified due to the jail sentence?

[WhiteTara]

2. I wondered that as well

the story doesn't say.

[fizzgig]

3. not surprised colorado springs was doing this

nasty, conservative place.