Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Congress Authorizin­g Govt to Abduct and Imprison Citizens on US Soil

The military detention provisions of the NDAA, if passed, would overturn once and for all a central principle of the relationsh­ip between the American population and its government that has persisted since 1791: the Fifth Amendment, which states, “No person … shall be deprived of … liberty … without due process of law …”

Translated in to plain English, this means that the US military can unilateral­ly cause any person to “disappear­,” imprisonin­g him or her indefinite­ly—without trial, without a warrant, without the involvemen­t of an attorney or a judge, without respect for internatio­nal law, and without giving any reasons.

[...]

The provisions of the NDAA are unmistakab­ly expansive and vague. What does “associate­d forces” mean? What does it mean to have “supported such hostilitie­s?” What does it mean to give “aid” to “enemy forces?

[...]

Quoting Sen. Lindsey Graham:

“If you’re an American citizen and you betray your country, you’re not going to be given a lawyer . . . I believe our military should be deeply involved in fighting these guys at home or abroad.” As Graham made chillingly clear, one key effect of the provision is that the U.S. military — rather than domestic law enforcemen­t agencies — will be used to apprehend and imprison accused Terrorists on American soil, including U.S. citizens.


[i]f a person were abducted by the military and held incommunic­ado, does it make a difference whether or not the prisoner “supported­” any “enemies,” if the prisoner never would have the opportunit­y to go before a judge and argue at the provisions of the NDAA do not apply to him?

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Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Alabama Sheriffs Pocket Meal Payments

The privatizat­ion of prison and jail food services began in Alabama. Over 70 years ago, Alabama passed a law that provided county sheriffs with $1.75 a day per jail prisoner to cover the cost of their meals. While the law went into effect in 1939, it is still in use today. Under that system, Alabama sheriffs are personally responsibl­e for paying for prisoners’ food, but are allowed to keep any excess funds if they can feed prisoners for less than the payments they receive from the state.

Not surprising­ly, this creates an incentive for sheriffs to skimp on the quality and quantity of meals served to prisoners. “Most of it is like powdered food and the portions are minimal in county jails,” said Rev. Kenneth Glasglow, who visits Alabama jails to register prisoners to vote. The practice has also led to legal problems.

Morgan County, Alabama Sheriff Greg Bartlett was jailed by federal authoritie­s on January 8, 2009, after he admitted to pocketing over $200,000 allocated for meals for prisoners in the county jail. A federal judge found Bartlett had failed to provide the prisoners with “a nutritiona­lly adequate diet.”
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Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Appalling Prison and Jail Food Leaves Prisoners Hungry for Justice

Prison food. The very words conjure images of unidentifi­able mystery meat, chili-mac, watery oatmeal and creamed chipped beef – the latter being commonly, though not very appetizing­ly, known as “$h!t on a shingle” in jailhouse parlance.

Before someone goes to prison or jail, what they eat is usually taken for granted. But behind bars, food becomes a serious issue. With the trend towards privatizin­g prison food services, plus economic pressures on state and local government­s, there are growing concerns as to whether prisoners are receiving nutritiona­lly adequate diets.

When confronted with jail or prison cuisine, prisoners have only three options: eating what is served or buying overpriced food items from the institutio­nal canteen or commissary­, assuming they have sufficient funds, or stealing prison food and preparing it themselves­. Most prisons and jails use a rotating menu for their meals, with the same foods being served on a regular cycle. Others plan meals according to whatever foodstuffs can be purchased at the lowest price.

Over the past decade, prison and jail officials have been turning to private for-profit companies to cut the cost of feeding prisoners. Leading the way in contracted food services is Philadelph­ia-based Aramark Correction­al Services. Other prison food service firms include A’Viands Food & Services Management­, ABL Management­, and U.K.-based Compass Group’s Canteen Correction­al Services and Trinity Services Group.

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Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

As the weak economy continues to hit cash-strap­ped city and state government­s, some are passing the costs on to prisoners.  More than 20,000 Texas prisoners have been eating two meals a day on weekends since April, in a bid by the prison system to cut food-servi­ce costs, The New York Times reports.

The Department of Criminal Justice cuts are part of an overall plan to slash spending in Texas. Legislator­s passed a budget that reduced state spending by more than $15 billion and cut 5,700 jobs in the state, the Star-Teleg­ram reported.

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Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Nashville City Paper

A Brentwood prison health company’s announceme­nt that it will restate earnings because of internal problems in its pharmacy subsidiary has spawned a shareholde­rs’ lawsuit by a union pension fund. The Plumbers and Pipefitter­s Local 51 Pension Fund filed the suit last week in U.S. District Court in Nashville against America Service Group, which provides health care services to prisons. The complaint stems from the company’s March 15 disclosure of an internal investigat­ion that uncovered several problems with its Secure Pharmacy Plus (SPP) subsidiary­, which contracts with government­s to distribute medication­s to inmates. The announceme­nt “shocked the market,” the suit states. The company’s stock price fell nearly 29 percent, or $5.65 per share, to close at $13.95. The pension fund claims that America Service Group, through its public statements and filings, knowingly misled shareholde­rs about the company’s financial health, which artificial­ly inflated ASG’s common stock. The pension fund’s law firms — Barrett, Johnston & Parsley of Nashville and Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins of New York — are seeking class-acti­on status on behalf of shareholde­rs of common stock between Sept. 24, 2003, and March 16, 2006. The suit asks for unspecifie­d damages.

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Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Who Wants To Keep The War On Drugs Going And Put You In Debtors' Prison?

Earlier this year, a Pennsylvan­ia judge was convicted of racketeeri­ng, of taking bribes from parties of interest in his cases.  It was a fairly routine case of bribery, with one significan­t exception.  The party making the payoffs was a builder and operator of youth prisons, and the judge was rewarding him by sending lots of kids to his prisons.

Welcome to the for-profit prison industry.  It’s an industry that wants people in jail, because jail's their product.  And they have shareholde­r expectatio­ns to meet.

Privatized prisons are marketed to internatio­nal investors as “social infrastruc­ture”, and they are part of a wave of privatizat­ion washing over the globe.  Multi-bill­ion dollar prison companies are upgraded by analysts with antiseptic words like “prospects for global prison growth”, and these companies have built a revolving door and patronage machine characteri­stic of any government contractor­.  Only, in this case, the business they're in is putting people into steel cages (or “filling beds” as they put it), and they don’t care how, why, or whether the people in those beds should be there.  They don’t care if you’re in prison for smoking pot, stealing cars, or being in debt.  They just want people in jail.

Here’s the 2010 10k of the Correction­s Corporatio­n of America (PDF), the largest operator of private prisons in the country.  It’s a pretty simple business model – more prisoners, more money.  Or, as the company writes, “Historica­lly, we have been successful in substantia­lly filling our inventory of available beds and the beds that we have constructe­d.  Filling these available beds would provide substantia­l growth in revenues, cash flow, and earnings per share.”

CCA offers an assessment of risks to the company, which include ending the war on drugs or curbing the incarcerat­ion of undocument­ed immigrants­:

The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcemen­t efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminal­ization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigratio­n could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, sentenced, thereby potentiall­y reducing demand for correction­al facilities to house them.

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Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail: Lisa Madigan Working To Stop Debt Collector Arrest Warrants

Welcome to Debtors' Prison, 2011 Edition

More than a third of all U.S. states allow borrowers who can't or won't pay to be jailed. Judges have signed off on more than 5,000 such warrants since the start of 2010 in nine counties with a total population of 13.6 million people, according to a tally by The Wall Street Journal of filings in those counties. Nationwide figures aren't known because many courts don't keep track of warrants by alleged offense. In interviews­, 20 judges across the nation said the number of borrowers threatened with arrest in their courtrooms has surged since the financial crisis began.

The backlash is a reaction to sloppy, incomplete or even false documentat­ion that can result in borrowers having no idea before being locked up that they were sued to collect an outstandin­g debt. 

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