Non-Criminal Prisons

Excerpt from Non-Criminal Prisons: English Debtor's Prisons and Prisons of War, French War Prisons, American War Prisons; With References to Those of Other Lands

Imprisonment for debt had its origin in the wish to foster and protect trade. The creditor was per mitted when he had proved his debt to recoup him self by laying his debtor by the heels. Yet in Eng land the practice was held by jurists to be an un doubted invasion of the Bill of Rights It was distinctly laid down that no court of justice, whether at common law or statute law, possessed the power to deprive an individual of his personal liberty for anything less than serious and atrocious crime. Still the right was usurped and exercised by specious means. Sellon says in his Practice, They obtained jurisdiction by a mere fiction over actions of debt, detinue and causes of a like nature. The judgment pronounced in English courts against a debtor was merely to the effect that he should pay the debt and costs, and it was incidental thereto that if he does not pay an execution will issue against his property. But no mention of im prisonment was included in the judgment, for which there was, in fact, no authority.

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