Doing Borrowed Time

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

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2370189
AutoresAdrienne Roberts (0000-0002-0204-5152, University of Manchester, autor de correspondencia)
Año2014
Volumen40
Número5
Páginas669-687
Fecha de publicación2014-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCritical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0896920513507788
OpenAlexW2330122415
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas29

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