The New Debtors' Prisons
This is how absolute monarchs kept themselves rich: criminalizing debtors and imprisoning the poor for being poor.
And that is why the founders specifically banned imprisonment for debt in the Constitution: because it is economic tyranny.
So why are local jurisdictions like Lexington, Kentucky using lies and tricks to re-instate unconstitutional debtors' prisons?
Beverly Fortune at the Herald:
Lexington's Urban County Council voted Thursday night to increase the amount Fayette County jail inmates pay for medical care and prescription medicine, and to increase booking fees at the jail.
"Booking fees," Gracie? So if my nasty neighbor calls the cops anonymously and reports that I'm selling pot, so I get arrested even though it's a lie, I have to pay for the cops' mistake?
Then, because the cops wouldn't let my take my very expensive heart medication with me, I have to pay for that mistake, too?
And if I'm so broke from paying for my expensive heart medication that I can't afford to pay for the cops' mistakes, then what? Wait - let me guess. Fines plus interest multiply every day I don't pay, even after I'm found innocent of the original charge, and I don't have any income because I'm in jail for not paying the always-multiplying fees that started because I did nothing wrong.
Right, motherfucker?
Rodney Ballard, director of the Division of Community Corrections, said increasing the booking fee will offset costs associated with taking a person into custody. Increasing the fee by $15 could bring in as much as an additional $200,000 a year.
Money from booking fees and medical co-pays goes into the city's general fund to help offset operating the institution, Ballard said.
SNIP
At Thursday's meeting, several people spoke against increasing the fees. Cory Dunn, who said he had been an inmate in the Fayette County jail, said the ordinance will not affect the criminal — "It is going to affect families of the criminal," many of whom are poor, he said.
SNIP
The city will make no attempt to collect bills that go unpaid. An unpaid balance will not affect the inmate's credit rating, and inmates' families will not be billed.
LIAR. If that were true, no one would ever pay.
Want to know how it really works? Watch this:
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