Alain Sherter of CBS MoneyWatch and the AP report on the disturbing resurgence of debtor’s prisons in America. Though it is technically no longer legal to jail people for failure to pay their debts, the debt-collection industry has figured out how to game the courts to create a series of jail-able offenses related to nonpayment. These are largely legal tricks by which debt-collectors get court orders regarding debtors with which the debtors find difficult to comply, resulting in jail for violation of the court order, often over trifling sums.
