DOUBLE SPRINGS, Ala.—As 59-year-old Pam Benton sat handcuffed to a cold bench inside the Winston County Courthouse, shame flooded over her.
All she could think about, she later explained, was what her grandchildren may soon believe about their “nana.”
“Only bad people go to jail,” Benton told Inside Climate News. “That’s what a lot of kids think. They’ll think, ‘My nana’s a good granny, but she went to jail.’”
Benton spent hours handcuffed to the bench inside the courthouse earlier this year, waiting to be booked on a charge she said she never knew could lead to her arrest.
Benton, like dozens of Winston County residents over more than two decades, was criminally charged with a misdemeanor, “failure to participate” in the county-run trash service over an unpaid bill.
An Inside Climate News review of court records shows that county sanitation officials regularly threaten residents who fall behind on their trash bills with criminal prosecution. If the citizens still fail to pay, staffers follow through on their threat, filing criminal complaints against residents with outstanding debt.
Court records show at least 60 criminal prosecutions over two decades of residents with unpaid bills ranging from around $100 to more than $2,000 with included court costs and fees. Many of the individuals prosecuted were physically arrested and jailed as recently as this year.
Those with the ability to pay their overdue balance in full often had their cases dismissed, records show. Others who could not pay their total balance were placed on payment plans but often entered plea agreements with prosecutors. Records show that some residents were prosecuted multiple times over years.
Winston County sanitation officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Ellen Degnan, a lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based legal nonprofit, said Winston County’s practice of criminalizing trash debt is unlawful and immoral. Being unable to pay a bill isn’t a crime, Degnan said.
“This is a perverse use of the criminal system to collect debt,” Degnan said. “Your choice is to pay the bill or have an arrest hanging over your head.”
While the text of the Alabama Constitution states that “no person shall be imprisoned for debt,” Degnan said that multiple local governments across the state have turned to criminal enforcement in a misguided and often ineffective effort to make residents pay up.
The plain text of Alabama law allows local governments to make participation in trash service mandatory and makes failure to pay certain solid waste fees a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of between $50 and $200. The statute gives local governments two options for those who fail to pay their bills: Suspend the services or try to recover the amount in civil court.
Some local governments, though, have relied on another provision of state law authorizing counties and cities to enforce their own ordinances as a mechanism for coercing the payment of trash debt through arrest.
The strategy has allowed some towns and counties to use the criminal justice system as its debt collector.
Residents in Valley, on the Alabama-Georgia border, and Chickasaw, just north of Mobile, have also faced prosecution and arrest over trash bills. Officials in both towns ultimately agreed to shutter the practice weeks later.
“I Can’t Give You What I Ain’t Got”
Benton said she had no idea that she had a warrant out for her arrest when she was pulled over and taken to jail in January 2025. She said she knew she owed the trash bill and wanted to pay it. She just didn’t have the money.
For decades, Benton has made her living painting homes, churches and businesses. She’s proud of her work.
She smiles as she talks about her favorite project, painting the foyer and sanctuary of a local church. She loves her job.
Her late husband got her into the business. They were married for 17 years before he died from cancer in 2011. But sometimes, especially as she’s gotten older and been unable to take on bigger jobs, Benton said work has slowed down.
Often, when winter comes, she has a hard time juggling her bills. Still, she’s proud to say she doesn’t take any kind of government assistance.
“My work is all I got,” she said. “But I love my work.”
Sometimes, work is not enough to make ends meet. That’s how she started to get behind on her trash bill.
“I just got behind, and I couldn’t ever get caught up,” Benton said. “I can’t give you what I ain’t got.”
Earlier this year, Benton received a letter from the Winston County Sanitation Department with red font printed across the top: “NOTIFICATION OF DELINQUENT ACCOUNT.”
“The Winston County Commission is requesting that an arrest warrant be issued for the delinquent accounts,” the notice, signed by collection agent Misty Collins, said. “You have 10 days from the date of this notice to contact us with a payment.”
Benton said she tried to work with staff at the county sanitation office without success.
“If they would’ve worked with me somehow or another, I would’ve gladly paid them,” she said. “I’m a damn good painter. I could do city hall. I could do anything they asked me to do. But as far as cash, I just ain’t got it.”
She also asked trash officials to take the can and suspend her service so that she could catch up on the debt without additional bills accruing. They refused.
Soon, another letter came, titled “NOTIFICATION OF WARRANT.”
“Be advised the Winston County Sanitation Office has issued a warrant for you,” the letter said. “You may call our office for further assistance. If you have been arrested you must pay through the circuit clerk’s office.”
Benton said she scrambled as quickly as she could to get together the money to pay. It didn’t help. She was driving a work vehicle to a paint job when she was pulled over for an issue with the vehicle’s tag. The officer ran Benton’s name and told her she’d be arrested over her unpaid trash bill.
“I had never been inside a jail,” Benton said.
Benton sat in the back of the police car in shock. She was transported to the Winston County Courthouse and the attached jail in Double Springs, the county seat.
The Free State
At the courthouse entrance, a statue of a Civil War soldier holds both Union and Confederate flags, a monument to the county’s historic split allegiances and its moniker as the “Free State of Winston.” The county was home to a number of small farmers who remained ardent unionists for much of the war.
Inside the building, Benton sat handcuffed to a bench, waiting to be booked.
There, she saw another woman, older than she was, who’d also been arrested over trash fees.
“I thought, ‘People like us try to do the best we can,’” Benton said, her eyes welling with tears. “And it wasn’t good enough.”
Winston County, with only about 24,000 residents, is a rural community 50 miles northwest of Birmingham. One in six residents here experience poverty, according to census data.
After Benton was released, she found out that the Winston County Sheriff’s Office had posted her booking photograph online.
“It was so embarrassing,” she said. “I’ve never done nothing wrong, and I work for everything I’ve got.”
In the photograph, white paint covers Benton’s blue hoodie. All of the comments on the department’s post are supportive of Benton and critical of her arrest.
“Wow, Winston County, this is how you treat a good woman in your community?” one resident asked. “Her trash bill didn’t get paid, so throw her in jail—a widowed woman. Y’all should be ashamed.”
“She has struggled since her husband passed away,” another resident commented. “Give her a break. Now her mugshot’s up like a criminal. They should be ashamed of themselves.”
Leah Nelson is a senior research associate for PARCA, the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, a nonpartisan, nonideological research center.
She said that cases like those in Winston County are examples of local government “running on autopilot” without careful consideration of what changes to public policy might benefit local government and residents alike.
Trash Policy
“It’s reasonable to have people pay to have their trash collected,” Nelson said. “What’s not reasonable is arresting people when they can’t pay.”
Nelson’s research on the use of fines and fees in Alabama’s criminal system has also shown that policies like Winston County’s often end up costing taxpayers more than the revenue they end up collecting.
“When you arrest someone, you are using city time,” she said. “That is not cheap. Is it worth the money it costs to do that?”
Another unintended consequence of criminalizing debt is the risk of delegitimizing local government in the eyes of the citizens it is meant to serve, according to Nelson.
“Cases like this undermine public trust in the system,” she said. “And presumably, that is not the goal of any government.”
Alabama’s solid waste law requires local governments to exempt residents whose sole income is social security from trash fees, but that exemption doesn’t come automatically. In 1995, the Alabama attorney general’s office concluded that cities and counties have “no duty to affirmatively seek out persons who are entitled to the exemption,” but that “sufficient notice of the exemption should be given to the public so such exemption may be claimed.”
A 2026 law also exempts households whose sole source of income is veterans’ benefits from paying local government trash fees.
None of the residents interviewed by Inside Climate News were aware of any exemptions to trash fees.
Tracy Lauderdale, 65, spent the night in jail over her unpaid trash bills in November 2023. It didn’t do much to inspire her confidence in her elected government, she said.
After receiving a threatening letter from sanitation officials and being placed on a payment plan, she appeared in court expecting to explain to the judge that she was having a difficult time keeping up. Her son had fallen ill with pneumonia, causing her to struggle paying her bills on her limited social security income. When her name appeared on the docket, Lauderdale was arrested.
“They cuffed me to the bench, took my picture, then put me in jail,” Lauderdale said.
She was shocked and embarrassed: “Why do they have to handcuff me over trash?”
Arresting people over unpaid bills often makes situations like hers worse, Lauderdale said. As soon as she was cuffed, she began to worry about what impact the case may have on her job taking care of seniors in their homes.
“It’s not right for them to arrest people over this,” she said. “It doesn’t help. But this is Winston County for you.”
Benton agreed that the practice is counterproductive.
“By picking me up and putting me in jail, you’re guaranteeing I can’t get you your money,” she said.
Both Lauderdale and Benton are on payment plans with Winston County Sanitation and the judicial system to pay off their remaining balances, according to court documents. Meanwhile, new trash bills are accruing, at $19.50 a month.
Nelson said there are many ways small governments like Winston County’s can change policy to address situations like these. Tax policy is one avenue.
“Everyone wants public services, and the public should pay for public services,” Nelson said. “But if so many people are getting behind on this fee that it is threatening the trash collection service, that suggests public officials need to find a different way to cover that municipal service.”
Even if they choose not to provide trash pickup from tax revenue, local governments are free to collect debts through the ordinary civil processes, Nelson said.
“But it’s not normal to use the criminal process to try and collect debt,” she said.
“Go Out and Find Them”
Winston County’s policy isn’t typical, but it’s longstanding. Inside Climate News reviewed court records involving such charges dating back to at least 2001.
In 2019, a local newspaper reported that county commissioners were “forced” to resort to “legal action” over unpaid bills because of a reported $800,000 in uncollected debt.
“People are not paying their bills,” the newspaper quoted Commissioner Roger Hayes as saying in a commission meeting. “We’re trying to work and people just need to pay their bills. It’s plain and simple.”
At the same 2019 meeting, the county attorney said that warrants for those who paid in full would be recalled.
“The ones who don’t [pay in full], they’ll have to go out and find them,” the attorney said.
In 2023, many of the same officials spoke to local media again about their desire to collect trash debt, citing around a half million dollars in still-unpaid fees.
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In a 2023 policy paper, the Alabama League of Municipalities, an association representing the state’s cities and towns, called the enforcement of trash policies “a constant headache.” But the group suggested its membership avoid criminal enforcement of nonpayment in favor of less drastic enforcement mechanisms like the termination of trash service, civil actions, or liens against property over criminal prosecution.
Earlier this year, Republican state Rep. Tim Wadsworth introduced legislation that would have changed state law to clarify that nonpayment of trash bills is not a misdemeanor and not punishable by jail time. The bill died in committee.
Lawyers with the Southern Poverty Law Center sent a letter to sanitation officials in Winston County on Aug. 28 demanding that prosecutions stop and that pending charges be dropped against folks like Lauderdale and Benton.
“SPLC’s goal is to ensure that no one is denied essential solid waste services or prosecuted simply because they cannot afford a garbage bill,” the letter said.
So far, Degnan said, they haven’t heard back from Winston County officials.
Benton said that she doesn’t want pity. She wants an opportunity to work and pay the debt she owes.
Right now, Benton said she’s focused on paying off the trash debt because of the criminal prosecution lingering over her head. But she’s also struggling with the power bill. Her electricity was recently shut off, so she’s been forced to run an extension cord into her home from her son’s house next door to power a small air conditioner to fight off the Alabama humidity.
“I’m struggling,” she said. “I struggle every month.”
Benton’s phone rang. She apologized for answering.
“Get two cans of semi-gloss for the doors, just to be safe,” she said. It’s for another painting job, she said, but that’s now just a side gig.
Benton recently began a new job at a mobile home manufacturing plant cleaning bathrooms and kitchens. It’s hard work, especially in the un-air-conditioned warehouse, but it provides a more stable income than her painting work alone. Still, she said it’s hard to catch up on bills.
Just last week, she said she received another letter from the county sanitation department, threatening another criminal prosecution.
“They may put another warrant out for me in a few days,” she said. “And I just don’t know what to do.”
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Reporter, Alabama
Lee Hedgepeth is Inside Climate News’ Alabama reporter. Raised in Grand Bay, Alabama, a small town on the Gulf Coast, Lee holds master’s degrees in community journalism and political development from the University of Alabama and Tulane University. Lee is the founder of Tread, a newsletter of Southern journalism, and has also worked for news outlets across Alabama, including CBS 42, Alabama Political Reporter and the Anniston Star. His reporting has focused on issues impacting members of marginalized groups, including homelessness, poverty, and the death penalty. His award-winning journalism has appeared in publications across the country and has been cited by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, among others.
