“It’s a futile system that penalizes the poorest residents of the poorest state in the country, said Cliff Johnson, director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi. ‘Debtors prisons are an effective way of collecting money—as is kidnapping,’ he said. ‘But there are constitutional, public policy and moral barriers to such a regime.'” An investigative piece from The Marshall Project: Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi. “The corrections department took her paychecks, she said, giving her back just $10 a week—all in quarters—so she could buy things like soap and deodorant.”