Gaming the System

Despite the name, not every post that makes its way onto this blog is actually going to establish a new record for slime, crime, or general inhumanity; the number of truly exceptional stories that come down the newswires is actually limited to no more than a few times each month. Some of these rants are just going to be cases of remarkable or noteworthy idiocy that make an important, illuminating, or educational point. And then there are going to be cases like the one I found today, about credit companies using the criminal justice system to have people thrown in jail for outstanding debts…


One might reasonably argue that debtor’s prisons were abolished in the United States over a century ago, violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishments, and constitute a disgusting misuse of public safety services (and funds) that could otherwise be used to apprehend, prosecute and incarcerate actual criminals. And one would be correct on all points, especially the one about using criminal courts to enforce civil matters being a complete perversion of our justice system. But, as this article in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune website makes all too clear, in at least some of the states the people actually running the system don’t appear to care…


Now, it is certainly true that there exist people in this country who, as one of the judges in the linked story puts it, “there are people who have the money but just won't pay a single penny." Many of the people who receive notice of the court actions don’t understand what the documents mean, don’t recognize the company that says they owe money (often because the debt has been sold to another institution to recover), or just assume that these communications are part of some attempt to defraud them. But if even a single case occurs where someone is jailed over legal proceedings before they were officially notified, let alone served with court documents (and there are several of these in the linked news story), then this situation has exceeded a mere perversion of our justice system and become a perversion of justice itself. This is the sort of abuse of privilege and influence that this country was founded to avoid in the first place, and any such actions should be repugnant to all Americans – and anyone else with a working sense of justice…


So it’s not a case of incompetent management, criminal malfeasance, or customer service so completely asinine that it actually damages the customer and ultimately the company providing it. This is all completely legal; it’s just so disgusting that I can’t even think of a bad metaphor for how disgusting it truly is. It’s a reason to avoid Minnesota, Arkansas and Washington State altogether, and another good reason for staying out of Arizona. It’s a truly inspiring effort at racing to the bottom – and until a new outrage appears on our radar, I think we have to call this one the winner…


It’s just sad to think that there should be another one along by next week…