Ohio Courts Illegally Jail People Over Debt

A disturbing trend of illegal imprisonment has been uncovered in Ohio, by the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Several Ohio courts have illegally jailed people for being too poor to pay their debts, and usually denying them a hearing to determine if they’re financially capable of paying what they owe.The ACLU has likened this problem to the debtors’ prisons of the 18th century. “The use of debtors’ prison is an outdated and destructive practice that has wreaked havoc upon the lives of those profiled in this report and thousands of others throughout Ohio,” the report said. Jailing people over debts pushes them farther into poverty, and it also costs counties more than the actual debt involved; arresting and imprisoning people is much costlier.The ACLU’s report found that Huron, Cuyahoga, and Erie counties are among the worst violators in Ohio. In the second half of 2012, more than one in every five of all bookings in the Huron County jail — originating from Norwalk Municipal Court cases — involved a failure to pay fines. The Parma Municipal Court, in suburban Cleveland, jailed at least 45 people for failure to pay fines and costs between July 15 and August 31, 2012. And in the same length of time, Sandusky Municipal Court jailed at least 75 people for similar charges.An earlier report on jailing people over debts (from 2010) found that many courts are violating a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision, which dictates that courts have to hold a hearing to determine why people are unable to pay before sentencing them to incarceration. “In many cases, poor men and women end up jailed or threatened with jail though they have no lawyer representing them,” the report said. And another report from 2010, by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, examined the growth of court fees in Florida. It found that the “current fee system creates a self-perpetuating cycle of debt for persons re-entering society after incarceration.” Courts break the law, daily, when they hold defendants in contempt of court for failing to pay fines without proper notice or allowing an attorney to be present, the report said. And courts are issuing warrants for people who fail to show up and pay their fines, and jailing defendants who are too poor to pay. All in all, an upsetting discovery from the ACLU. Civil lawsuits are the legal way to recover debt, not jail time.