"The organizations, which include the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, have signed a letter that was delivered today calling on members of Congress to back the legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) in January.
If passed, the “End of Debtors’ Prison Act of 2016” would cut federal funds from municipalities that hire for-profit private probation companies to collect court debt. In many cases, these companies threaten low-income offenders with jail when they cannot make monthly payments for traffic fines and other minor offenses. This practice persists even though the United States abolished debtors’ prisons almost 200 years ago."
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