Jail // Current TV

Charlie Sheen avoids jail time

Charlie Sheen makes a plea deal with the prosecutors to avoid jail time for the... more

andycr43
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Lindsay Lohan Still Coddled By Enabling Dina Lohan

It’s no wonder her daughter’s a jailbird cokehead with drink and drug... more

Hollywoodly
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WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON WITH DRUG ADDICTION?

is a basic destructive nature associated with the abuse of chemicals. This destructive... more

denisethornton
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Lindsay Lohan cries in jail

Lindsay Lohan is in jail these days after the court’s order, this all of us know... more

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This Military Contractor Rocks a $100,000 Belt Buckle - Send Him to Jail

David H. Brooks did well enough selling body armor to the military to hire 50 Cent and... more

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FINALLY! Dem. Charlie Rangel CHARGED With Ethics Violations…Will Stand Trial! (VIDEOS)

Charlie Rangel CHARGED With Ethics Violations, Trial To Be Held Huffingtonpost.com... more

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Lindsay Lohan Surrenders: The Coverage Behind The Coverage

Lindsay Lohan's prison march was a three-ring media circus, and infoMania's... more

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Jailed Mayor Accused Of Sexual Misconduct

The imprisoned former African American mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, was charged... more

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White Collar Crime and the cost to US consumers

White Collar crimes cost billions of dollars and impact the entire economy . White... more

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The Lindsay Lohan Verdict With Subtitles On What Her Lawyer Said

Lindsay Lohan was unable to control her emotions in the courtroom. Her lawyer, was a... more

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War Crimes

In this episode of Vanguard, correspondent Kaj Larsen investigates the alarming rise... more

Kaj
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Rock and repression in Cuba

Cuban rock musicians, bloggers and activists demand a change to the country's... more

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Environmentalist faces jail for hanging banner in Senate office building

A 60 year-old environmental activist who hung two banners in a government building... more

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Australia priest jailed for child sex attacks

A Catholic priest in Australia has been sentenced to nearly 20 years in jail for sex... more

eva2
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TRANNY IN A MAN’S JAIL - The New York Penal System Threw Our Friend Kira to the Wolves - Vice Magazine

I love Vice magazine for its range in content. I feel it's obvious that... more

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Jail Inmates Beat Father Who Attempted To Sell His Baby For $25

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Corruption By Design: AMERICA'S FIRST POLITICAL PRISONER = SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA

FullDisclosureNetwrk — April 14, 2010 — Full Disclosure Network presents a... more

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French Prisoner Has Lunch With Cellmate ... Literally

He argued with his cellmate over use of the toilet, so he ended up stabbing him then... more

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Owe Money? Be Careful, or You Might End Up in Jail | | AlterNet

Owing money is not a criminal offense in the USA. But big business has found a way to end-run this process.
June 19, 2010 |

Reports of mild-mannered Americans getting arrested for being in debt are starting to pop up in states across the country. All over the Net, we've been reading about these poor saps snatched off the street — right in front of their horrified children — by glowering cops and locked up just for missing a few credit card payments.

Right, but they're not. They can't. In this country, owing money is not a criminal offense. It is in Dubai, where nearly half of the prison population is behind bars for defaulting on bank loans. But in the United States, incarceration for debt was abolished in 1833, and now debt itself is a mere civil matter. Sure, collection agencies want you to think the FBI cares whether or not you pay that Nordstrom bill. But they risk losing their licenses for so much as implying this, thanks to the U.S. Fair Trade Commission's Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, in effect since 1966.

Read between the lines and you'll see that these debtors weren't arrested for being debtors but — in most cases — for missing court dates for negotiating their debts.

Incur debt and your creditor can call you, write you, hire a collection agency and finally sue you. At that point a subpoena, delivered via process server or registered mail, announces that you're now a defendant, your creditor a plaintiff. This subpoena lists a date and time at which you are ordered to appear before a judge in civil court "to disclose your assets and liabilities and determine how this defendant is going to pay this plaintiff," explains Will Lund, superintendent of Maine's Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection, which enforces the FDCA and licenses collection agencies.

"Attendance by the defendant is mandatory. To ensure that it's mandatory, a subpoena is involved. To not show up is not dissing the plaintiff. It's dissing the court," Lund says. "It's contempt of court, and that can lead to arrest."

Most debtors don't realize that ignoring the summons means crossing that line, exiting the stressful but safe realm of owing money and entering the stark realm of mugshots and body searches and jail-issued sandwiches eaten among robbers and arsonists. This transit happens when a judge signs a capias, a civil warrant for arrest on the basis of failure to appear in court.

"If you've got a capias against you for failure to appear, you could be arrested if you're stopped by the police," affirms Katherine Martell of Fairfax, Virginia-based K&M Law Group, which specializes in debt restructuring and debt recovery. "That's not the same as snatching people off the street for not paying debts."

The frequency of such arrests, and law-enforcement officers' eagerness to make them, vary from county to county and state to state, but given the severity of other crimes that cops have to deal with, this one is always low priority.

"It's not like a roundup where the police say, 'Hey, we're gonna go out and pick up all the debtors today," says attorney Marshall Meyers of Phoeniz, Arizona-based Weisberg & Meyers. "But if you get pulled over for a traffic ticket, say, and you've got a warrant for failure to appear in court, they can bring you in."Owing money is not a criminal offense in the USA. But big business has found a way to... more

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Story on Drew Nelson song about Sacred Eagle Rock, Yellow Dog Plains in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that's being destroyed by Kennecott Minerals

Story/photo about Drew Nelson song about sacred Eagle Rock came out in this... more

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