Debtor's Prisons Repackaged

I first learned of the concept of a debtor's prison from reading Charles Dickens in my youth. At the time I couldn't see the logic behind the concept because how could someone pay their debt if they were locked up?

At the federal level, the United States did away with this practice in the 1830's. The UK followed suit in 1869. Supposedly, no one can be jailed for failure to pay a debt, right? Sorry, Charlie, that ain't so.

Now this is an extreme case and may have merit, but check this out from AJC.com:

A former employee of Global Destiny Church has asked a Gwinnett judge to put Bishop Thomas W. Weeks III in jail for contempt of court because he failed to repay a debt to her.

A petition for contempt was filed Tuesday by Suzanne Ellis. The petition says that Weeks, and his church empire Global Destiny Inc. and TWIII Ministries Inc., never reimbursed Ellis for about $90,000 worth of items she was asked to buy as an employee.

Bishop Weeks might be going to jail for failing to pay a debt, but the justice system will call it contempt of court, kind of a repackaged debtor's prison.