Reformers Seek to Undo Growth of New 'Debtors' Prisons'
In the three decades since the U.S. Supreme Court banned jailing people because they couldn't afford to pay fines, the practice has crept back into fashion, giving rise to what critics describe as a new generation of debtors' prisons.
And now comes the backlash.
A wave of investigations and lawsuits by civil rights organizations is forcing local courts to curtail their reliance on fines, fees and surcharges related to traffic tickets and other minor offenses. Officials across the country are slowly rethinking what it means to be poor in the eyes of the justice system — and finding ways to allow indigent people to avoid falling into a cycle of debt and incarceration.
The latest push emerged last week in tiny Alexander City, Alabama — population 15,000 — where the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit alleging the local government and police chief ran "a modern-day debtors' prison" in which poor people were ordered to pay off their fines by serving time in the municipal jail at a rate of $20 a day.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/reformers-seek-undo-growth-debtors-prisons-n425276