Are Debtors Still Imprisoned?

British author L.P. Hartley wrote, “The past is a foreign country … they do things differently there.”

That was certainly true when it came to debt. For much of history, if you failed to repay your creditors, you went to prison, or experienced something even worse. But in some ways, are debtors still imprisoned?

There’s no question that past societies viewed debt far more seriously than we do today. For one thing, there were no credit cards, or credit scores, for that matter.

Lenders required collateral, and if you didn’t have property to put up, a son or daughter would do. (See 2 Kings 4, “The Widow’s Oil,” for an example.) It wasn’t until the 19th century that Britain and the U.S. abolished debtors’ prisons.

The idea of throwing someone into prison for unpaid debt seems counterproductive. How are you supposed to pay off your creditors if you’re in jail? Just the idea of going to prison was a strong deterrent to not paying off a debt. Prisons then were decidedly less pleasant than today. The threat of prison incentivized you to pay your debts before being hauled off in shackles.

Another way that debtors’ prisons were successful, if you can call it that, was that they put pressure on your family and friends to step in and pay your debts. Creditors didn’t care who paid, as long as someone did.

Also, in many cases, you had to pay your jailors for food and lodging, so you could actually increase your debt by going to jail. It wasn’t unusual for people to die there. In many cases, debtors’ prison left families destitute. Wives and children sometimes had to follow the husband or father to prison because they lost their homes.

Debtors’ prison wasn’t just for the poorer classes, however. You might say it was an “equal opportunity” punishment. Sometimes wealthy people ended up in prison over a disputed debt. Famous people weren’t spared either. Some well-known individuals ended up on the wrong side of the iron bars.

Robert Morris was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and helped secure desperately needed funding for the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as successful with his own finances and ended up in debtor’s prison.

Charles Goodyear did as well. He was the inventor of vulcanized rubber. Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, was also imprisoned for unpaid debt, as was the father of author Charles Dickens.

Debtors’ prisons weren’t abolished in America until 1833, and in Britain not until 1869, but that doesn’t mean habitual debtors then got off scot-free, nor do they today. It just means that unpaid debt moved from being a criminal to a civil offense. Obviously, people are still hauled into court everyday for unpaid debt.

Not paying what you owe still has dire consequences, and there’s no better place to look for that lesson than God’s Word. Proverbs 22:7 warns, “The borrower is slave to the lender.” That will never change. Life is still unpleasant for those who run up debt, and worse if you don’t pay it.

Instead of debtors’ prisons, we have credit reports that track your payments, or non-payment, of every account you open, and in minute detail.

From those reports, your credit score is determined, a single number that creditors use to determine whether you’re a good risk. In a sense, having a low credit score is like being put in financial shackles. In many cases, you can’t get a mortgage or other types of loans. Or if you do, you have to pay a higher interest rate than someone with a good credit rating.

In recent years, having a low credit score began to affect more than your ability to get a loan. For instance, you may find yourself paying more for car insurance. It can even affect whether you get a job, because employers increasingly look at credit scores as part of the hiring process.

You’re no longer thrown in jail for not paying your debts, but your freedom to make important decisions that affect your life is certainly limited. It’s definitely a form of financial bondage or imprisonment.

Is debt a problem in your life? If so, we urge you to get the new FaithFi Debt Assessment. This free resource will not only assess the condition of your debt, it will help you put together a game plan for getting out of debt.

The Bible never calls debt a sin, but it’s full of warnings and reminders that God wants His people free to serve Him more fully. Debt limits our ability to answer God’s call.

You can also listen to the related podcast on this topic.