Guilty prison

A debt prison (also known as “debt tower”) was a special prison for people who had not met their payment obligations until the 19th century .

middle Ages

Before the introduction of public debtors' prison was known for defaulting debtor , the debt bondage .

In the late Middle Ages and early modern times, public guilty detention became the rule across Germany. It served to enforce performance (so-called "pressure detention") and not, as is often assumed, to sanction, since prison sentences were not yet known. Sometimes there was also the possibility of serving off one's debts (e.g. in Nuremberg or Frankfurt in the so-called Panzerloch ).

In most cities, the towers of the city fortifications served as city prisons. There were separate prisons for certain sanctions, and some of the towers got their names from this (e.g. blood tower, thief tower, debt tower). The term “debt tower”, based on the Saxon constitutions, became the catchphrase for public guilty detention in the guilty prison.

Modern times

Until modern times, criminal detention (also "personal arrest") remained in many legal systems on the one hand a means of enforcing a performance based on judgment, on the other hand security arrest to secure the initiation or continuation of the process or the endangered execution against the debtor's assets. It was considered a special disgrace, but was subject to special rules compared to criminal detention . So it was mostly similar to today's open penal system , i. H. the debtor could go to work during the day to pay off his debt.

In the course of the 19th century, guilty custody was largely abolished in Europe. It was repealed in France as early as 1867, followed by Austria, Great Britain with the Debtors Act of 1869, Sweden 1879, and in Switzerland with the Federal Constitution of 1874 (Art. 59 BV: "Detention is abolished"). The North German Confederation did this with the law of May 29, 1868; shortly before that, a new guilty prison was opened in Berlin in 1864.

In 1963, due to the inability to fulfill contractual obligations, deprivation of liberty was prohibited in the 4th Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (Art. 1), which was successively ratified by many states. Thirteen years later (1976) the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into force, which also stipulates in Article 11: "Nobody may be arrested only because he is unable to fulfill a contractual obligation."

present

Comparable forms of detention that are still used in Germany today are:

compulsory detention for a maximum of six months for submitting an affidavit of a debtor according to §§ 802g, 802 j ZPO (formerly: § 901 ff. ZPO) for liabilities of all kinds

enforcement detention for a maximum of six weeks in the event of unwillingness to pay and fines ;

Replacement custodial sentences ;

Personnel arrest as a means of security for foreclosure on property.

As a metaphor , the term “debt tower” is still used today in political, social and legal language. One speaks, for example, of the “everlasting debt tower” or “debt tower obligation” and means that a debtor cannot free himself from his overwhelming debt burden on his own.

There are still countries with this practice, for example the UAE .

literature

Steffen Breßler: Debt bondage and debt tower. On the execution of personnel in Saxon law from the 13th to the 16th Century. Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-428-11348-9 ( geocities.com ( memento of June 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive )).
Karl Gratzer: Default and Imprisonment for Debt in Sweden. In: Karl Gratzer, Dieter Stiefel (Ed.): History of Insolvency and Bankruptcy from an International Perspective. Huddinge 2008, p. 16 ff. (English).

Web links

Wikisource: Law Relating to the Abolition of Custody - Sources and full texts

Wiktionary: Schuldturm - explanations of meanings, origins of words, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

^ Albert Cremer: The debt prison in Berlin . In: Journal of Construction . Year 15 (1865), col. 281–290, sheet L, plates 44–48 ( digital copy in the holdings of the Central and State Library Berlin ).
↑ Economic crisis: Emirates facing the ultimate test. In: wiwo.de. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .
^ How the world is dealing with the issue of debtors. In: The National. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .
^ Laid-Off Foreigners Flee as Dubai Spirals Down - The New York Times. In: nytimes.com. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .

[1] Albert Cremer: The debt prison in Berlin . In: Journal of Construction . Year 15 (1865), col. 281–290, sheet L, plates 44–48 ( digital copy in the holdings of the Central and State Library Berlin ).

[2] Economic crisis: Emirates facing the ultimate test. In: wiwo.de. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .

[3] How the world is dealing with the issue of debtors. In: The National. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .

[4] Laid-Off Foreigners Flee as Dubai Spirals Down - The New York Times. In: nytimes.com. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .