An Alabama town is being accused of violating people's rights with a practice that was outlawed 200 years ago

http://www.businessinsider.com/aclu-sues-alexander-city-over-debtors-prison-2015-9

Jacob Shamsian
Sep. 10, 2015,

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Alexander City, Alabama, accusing the town of running a "debtors prison."

According to the lawsuit, the city is arresting low-income people for their inability to pay fines and court costs.

Debtors prisons, or prisons meant to hold people who can't pay their debts, were outlawed by the federal government in 1833. But many cities continue to lock people up because they can't afford to pay court fines — essentially a form of debt.

The SPLC has spent years exposing what it describes as the modern-day version of debtors prisons around the US. In a press release for this case, it mentions that it successfully sued Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, in 2014 to end the city's practice of jailing people who couldn't pay fines.

The SPLC said 30% of Alexander City residents lived below the poverty line and hundreds had been jailed in the past two years for being unable to pay debts. Judges in Alexander's municipal court do not determine defendants' ability to pay, according to the lawsuit, and people are held in city jail where they "sit out" their debt at the rate of $20 a day ($40 in some cases), rather than setting up a payment plan or performing community service.

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