20. Great Britain continued to imprison for debt into the 20th century
Despite steady pressure from reformers to end the practice entirely, British judges continued to send debtors to prison throughout the 19th century, and into the 20th. The number of prisoners dropped for a time, then increased again, so it is possible to obtain a glimpse of Britain’s economic cycles through its incarceration rates for debt. In 1869, Parliament passed the Debtor’s Act of 1869, limiting the abilities of judges to incarcerate debtors, but not eliminating them. Bankruptcy through the courts allowed a debtor to avoid prison, but not all debtors could be found bankrupt, and the option did not present itself to all debtors. The cost of pursuing bankruptcy in British courts approached 20% of the annual workingman’s yearly income.
Despite the provisions of the Act of 1869, populations in debtor’s prisons remained high. The prisons themselves did not show much improvement either, despite pressures from the reformers. At the turn of the 20th century, over 11,000 inmates resided in British prisons solely for the crime of indebtedness, more than 2,000 more than had been imprisoned in 1869. In Victorian and Edwardian Britain, indebtedness beyond the means to repay appeared as a lack of morality on the part of the debtor. As such, it required correction via punishment. Far from abolishing debtor’s prisons, the Act of 1869 merely refocused who could or could not use the law to their benefit by staying out of prison for debt.