The Debtors' Prisons of St. Louis County

“Imprisoning people for being poor has technically been illegal in this country for two hundred years [since 1833 actually], but it is still a reality. Municipalities with small, low-income populations and correspondingly low tax bases regularly pay their salaries, and pad their budgets by issuing ‘quality of life’ and traffic fines to people for minor offenses—and sending them to jail if they can’t pay.”