A debtors' prison is a prison for people who are unable to pay debt. Prior to the mid 19th century debtors' prisons were a common way to deal with unpaid debt.
Famous quotes containing the word prison:
“Social questions are too sectional, too topical, too temporal to move a man to the mighty effort which is needed to produce great poetry. Prison reform may nerve Charles Reade to produce an effective and businesslike prose melodrama; but it could never produce Hamlet, Faust, or Peer Gynt.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)