The crisis of criminal-justice debt is just one of the many tributaries feeding the river of deep rage in Ferguson.
A 2010 study by the Brennan Centre for Justice, a law and public-policy institute, found that at least 13 of the 15 states with the largest prison populations allowed probation to be extended beyond the judicially-imposed terms for non-payment of criminal-justice debt.
In a report published in 2010 by the Brennan Center for Justice, researchers analyzed criminal-justice debt in the fifteen states with the highest prison populations, and reported that eighty to ninety per cent of those charged with criminal offenses "qualify for indigent defense".
Unlikely partnerships to address asset-forfeiture abuses have, in recent years, lent strength to a much larger cross-party push: to roll back mandatory minimum sentences; to address the injustices of the money-bail system; to curb soaring rates of criminal-justice debt; and to address other drivers of mass incarceration, many of which trace back to profiteering.
Chris Hicks, an organizer at Jobs With Justice's Debt-Free Future Campaign, who helped organize a December letter to Duncan criticizing Sallie Mae, said the company's tally of complaints seemed "very low".
Chris Hicks, an organizer at Jobs With Justice's Debt-Free Future Campaign, said his group hopes to increase pressure on the Education Department to spur servicing reforms that would avoid needless student loan defaults.
A successful approach in Grenada could have huge repercussions for achieving debt justice.
The three demands from the Make Poverty History coalition to the members of the G8 were: trade justice, drop the debt, and more and better aid.
The importance of what might be called "debt justice" to a wider notion of fairness is not limited to Christianity and Judaism.
This metaphor was actually patterned after a march on Washington led by Jacob Coxey, a part of a populist movement fighting for economic justice and against debt.
And when the Labour government came in they introduced very heavy inheritance taxes, income taxes, etc., to fund their project of social justice (and the war debt).
