Debtors' Prison on the Rise
There is an increasing trend across the country that has regular people put in jail over their inability to pay off the debts that they have.
Debtors' jail, as it is commonly referred to as, uses old laws in some states to put people in jail if they fail to pay off their court-ordered debts.
People who are unable or unwilling to pay off their debts can be put in jail if a judge deems it an appropriate action in more than one-third of states, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
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The judges in states where debtors' laws are found can and do issue warrants to borrowers who either fail to make the required court ordered payments or fail to appear before a judge after a debtor has been sued by a collection agency.
Currently there are no nationwide statistics on the frequency or number of people who are arrested and then put in jail based on the status of their debts.
However, an analysis of warrants related to debtors revealed that since the start of 2010, there have been more than 5,000 warrants issued, according to The Wall Street journal.
The number of complaints regarding debt collection agencies has also increased significantly. According statistics from the Federal Trade Commission complaints about debt collectors increased to 140,036 in 2010 from 104,766 in 2008.
And in several cases the FTC has even taken debt collection companies to court. Since 2009, there have been 10 companies involved in court proceedings compared with just six companies in the preceding three years.
With the current economy, everyday Americans are facing real economic hardships and making certain decisions whose consequences they may not be aware of. The amount of payday loan providers has increased dramatically over the past several years and experts expect that the industry will grow over 26 percent over the next three years.
