This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, June 5th, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

We are seeing the return of something similar to an institution cast aside long ago, debtors prisons, where the inability to pay fines associated

with small crimes means jail time and worse.

Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, evaluates the incentives for the parties involved.

We're beginning to hear about people who end up spending, you know, not insignificant times in jail because they're unable to pay fees that they owe the government

and these people are often have been charged with crimes and are unable to pay.

Charged with crimes and sometimes with very small crimes.

National Public Radio just did a series on this which is focused attention on it,

although the abuses have been getting coverage for a few years now.

And the story is told by NPR

will begin with something like

catching a fish out of season

or making an illegal left turn

things that don't sound as if they would get you very deeply

entangled with the criminal justice system, but they carry a fine and if the fine is $150, it might sound like something that even a relatively poor person could handle.

And then the combination of additional penalties for not sending in a check on time or not making a court appearance with the

a la cart extra expenses that and this is something that have really mushroomed in the

last 30 years things like charges for your own arrest warrant or charges for the time you spend in jail on a per diem basis for your room and board.

Many of these things will turn that initial very small obligation into thousands of dollars.

And so you wind up with originally petty offenses

leading to people being completely buried under the snowballing legal obligations.

...