On the October 14 edition of his show, Iowa radio host Jan Mickelson suggested he would reform the criminal justice system by forcing the sale of people who cannot pay off their restitution.

Mickelson brought up a story of a woman unable to pay restitution on money she stole from her employer. Referencing “anyone who steals,” he suggested the adoption of a new type of system that mimics the chapter Exodus in the Bible, which calls for those who are unable to pay restitution to be “sold to pay for their theft” at a “slave market” and profits made from the sale should go to pay for the criminal's restitution:

After a commercial break Mickelson stated for the benefit of “you guys at Media Matters” he was not talking about illegal “chattel slavery” but instead “indenturing people” because “if somebody is a thief and they have to make restitution -- and that's what justice is -- if they don't have any money, Exodus says, Moses said, [and] God said they must be sold for their theft” :

Mickelson has previously come under scrutiny for saying that undocumented immigrants who don't leave Iowa should become "property of the state," a position he tried to walk back days later.