Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi

Re:Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mis... by rtpg on Saturday January 11, 2020 @11:39PM (#22024515)

If you are fined $20,000 for a thing and are unable to pay, you end up in a prison and are forced to work off your debt.

This is functionally what debtors prisons were used for

From the wiki summary:

> Destitute persons who were unable to pay a court-ordered judgment would be incarcerated in these prisons until they had worked off their debt via labour or secured outside funds to pay the balance

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Re:Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mis... by JamesBarney on Sunday January 12, 2020 @12:25PM (#22027522)

Say I did a bunch of work for your company. And you stiff me for $10,000. I can't just go immediately seize your back account. I first have to establish in the court of law that you owe me money.

So I'd sue you and the judge would award me $10,000. But he would award me the $10,000 as court ordered judgement which is the legal instrument that proves you owe me money.

So that line doesn't mean quite what you think it means.

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Re:Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mis... by wutbrodo on Sunday January 12, 2020 @01:31AM (#22024841)

Huh, TIL, for some reason I always thought they were for general debt.

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Re:Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mis... by rtpg on Sunday January 12, 2020 @11:33PM (#22031854)

This would actually happen. Usually the person you owe money to would drag you to court and then get you thrown in a debtors prison.

I guess my point was that you could end up there for civil or criminal things.

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Re:Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mis... by SamReidHughes on Sunday January 12, 2020 @06:49PM (#22030615)

YYDL, actually. They were for general debt.

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