Political Underpinnings of Debt Enforcement: The Curious Case of the New York City Marshals

Sofia Butnaru, University of Chicago

This paper looks at the case of one enforcement branch, the NYC Marshals, and their distinctive privatized, highly profitable, and deeply unpopular system to map out and assess some of the key dynamics of debt enforcement. For almost a century, mayors, civic groups, and judges have called for the system’s abolition, but no one has been able to rid the city of the marshals. I leverage the political contestations around New York City’s debt enforcement regimes as an opportunity to understand some of the underlying assumptions, opinions, and dynamics of debt: what do city officials or residents think creditors are owed? What do they think debtors deserve? Why has this system persisted? How does enforcement shape the credit landscape? Using historical methods, I trace the last century of the NYC Marshals and find two overarching dynamics at play. First, that a particular understanding of contracts shapes marshal practices; namely large creditor contracts are prioritized above all. Second, fiscal crises dictate the realm of possibilities for reform as well as the underlying logics behind enforcement practices. The priority is to collect more fees and fines to increase revenue. This paper analyzes documents from the NYC Municipal Archive and contemporaneous legal cases and news sources from La Guardia's, Wagner's, Lindsay's, Koch's, Dinkins', and Giuliani's mayorship to delineate the long history of NYC's debt enforcement regime.

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 Presented in Session 180. Dollars, Debt, and Financial Risk