Over the past 30 years, America’s swelling county jails have seen people kept behind bars for failing to pay to court fees. Reform can’t come soon enough.

An NYT investigation reveals that it has become more common than you would think for nursing homes to get legal control over their residents—and their residents’ assets.

In cities and towns across America, debtor’s prisons in all but name are locking the less fortunate into cycles of poverty and dysfunction.