Do debtors prisons still exist?
Debtor’s prisons were abolished in the United States in 1833. Until that time, failure to pay what you owed could and did land you in jail. And debtor’s prisons added a nice touch — not only were you forced to pay your debt, but you were also forced to pay your prison fees. The question was, how? These prisons didn’t allow work release, and prisoners didn’t print license plates, so once in the lock-up, debtors were almost solely dependent on family or friends (or hidden funds that took imprisonment to shake from their pockets) in order to pay the bill — sometimes less than a dollar. And while waiting for payment to drop from the sky, debtors could look forward to accommodations that toed the line between a jail and a dungeon. In 1736, a Maryland committee described the local debtors’ prison as, “A place of restraint and confinement [that] has also been a place of death and torments to many unfortunate people” [source:
