Doing Borrowed Time

The State, the Law and the Coercive Governance of 'Undeserving' Debtors

Bibliographic Data

ID2370189
AuthorsAdrienne Roberts (0000-0002-0204-5152, University of Manchester, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume40
Issue5
Pages669-687
Publication date2014-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0896920513507788
OpenAlexW2330122415
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited29

This paper documents the shift toward increasingly coercive means of collecting debt from working class and poor borrowers, with a specific focus on incarceration. Placing this trend within an historical trajectory, it is argued that the law has always been central to creating and securing the social relations of debt as class relations. While the abolition of debtors' prisons in the 19th century helped to shift struggles between debtors and creditors out of public view and into the depoliticized realm of 'the law', a number of factors have led to its reappearance in the contemporary era. These include (1) changes to bankruptcy legislation that have given creditors greater power over debtors, (2) the emergence of the debt-buying industry and (3) the growing privatization, decentralization and commercialization of the state, which have transformed it into a creditor that relies on its power to punish to compel payment from some of the poorest debtors

Bankruptcy · Corporate governance · Creditor · Debt · Economics · Law and economics · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Receivership · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Homelessness and Social Issues · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Finance