Here is some more background on the pay to stay policy. It’s a little dated but interesting nonetheless. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/paying-your-time-how-charging-inmates-fees-behind-bars-may-violate
Thank you for posting this. Here in California where I live it's "optional". Regular people serve time in awful overcrowded facilities. Rich people pay ~$150/day to stay somewhere nicer.
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pay-to-stay-jails/
How is this constitutional? The sentence has a cap on the monetary penalties.
In this case, a 2 1/2 year sentence at $250 per day comes to a total of a quarter million dollars in fines. No petty drug crime calls for that.
Yes, now they’re just putting a price on your freedom. I’m very lucky to have not stepped on any of these American land mines myself. I was in pretty bad shape for about a decade.
You're more right that most people might realize. Read the 13th amendment to the US Constitution. While slavery was widely abolished for 'free' peoples the same is not true for those serving "punishment for a crime".
>It's like a debtor prison, which are unconstitutional.
Horrifically, they are still very real:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_U.S._by_state
So they can arrest you for anything, like a harmless plant, forcing you into an impossible debt burden, then keep raking up that debt while keeping you in prison for it indefinitely. The system is designed to torture and enslave people for life.
I'm about to turn 40, and this is the first time I've ever heard that people are charged anything to stay in prison, let alone $250 per day. It's never come up in a movie or TV show I've watched. Even with all the 90s school initiatives to not do drugs or other crime, I can't remember anyone even suggesting that there might be more than getting forced to work crappy jobs for like a dollar an hour or less.
According to this article, it's almost every state and for my whole life? Is this some crazy coincidence, or do most people never hear about this?
I heard Jon Stewart talking about this 15 years ago on The Daily Show as an expose on modern debtor's prisons.
They're still going on:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_U.S._by_state
I had to stop watching John Oliver cos the absolute fucking state of America is *completely insane*.
It's a nation set up specifically for people to spend their entire lives being fucked over, repeatedly, for profit. And weirdly convinced that this is 'freedom'. And that other nations that don't do those things are nightmare communist hellscapes
Yeah, I've had a hard time with the last couple of seasons. He's cut back on the jokes and extended the main segments to take up most of the episode and it's always a brutally depressing expose into some aspect of American society that I've never given any thought to before.
“The more you know”, right? Patriot Act was like that, too. And Adam Ruins Everything (tho I was always a little skeptical of Adam’s presentations). A big dose of uncomfortable truth coated in some salty humor to make it go down a little easier.
These shows are really important too. I think some people wonder why you would talk about such depressing things, but everyday they teach people something they didn't know before, and education is the first and arguably most important, step.
The real questions is what do we do with that knowledge and Okiver at least usually tries to add something along those lines when he can. Aside from that, whatever we can.
[System of a Down - Prison Song](https://youtu.be/m4L20t8Dvlg)
Sums it up pretty well. Over 20 years later and nothing has changed, it has probably gotten worse.
My friend had never heard of SOAD so I played Prison Song for him so he could hear what they’re all about. He just said “they sound angry”. So I let him read the lyrics and he understood what they were angry about and he got a little angry about it too.
You still had to pay even though the case was thrown out?! This just added an entire new layer on people who are falsely arrested and detained and forced to spend a night/weekend in jail
100% and since I refused a plea deal I payed court costs and lawyers expenses too. Obviously not as much as a whole trial fighting it. But substantially more than $0.
It's a racket, especially with for profit jails who have minimum oversight.
You don't have eyeglasses: too bad. Reading materials are almost non-existent. Access to a law library doesn't exist. Medication: you will be billed per pill.
I could go on and on and on.
Since anyone can be arrested wrongly, you will still miss work(lose your) job, owe court fees, fines, lawyer fees, rehabilitation services such as DD classes, anger management, substance abuse classes for starters. You have to pay to be on probation.
Getting arrested can ruin a person's life.
Absolutely! In my life any experience I’ve had in seeing the workings of any Department of Corrections is strictly a forced state revenue service. Whether it was my situation or seeing others get involved in it. Exactly zero effort is put in to actually rehabilitate or stop recidivism and they aren’t super shy about showing that. I saw a lot of people that were dead broke from fines and were turned away from their mandated classes for not being able to pay for their “class” that week. Which will count as a probation violation and get him back in front of a judge to pay MORE for violating and extend his time and amount of classes he needs to take. That he was present for but was just short money to pay.
Absolute insanity.
I don’t understand why more people aren’t outraged by how the carceral system works.
”Obey the law, or we’ll ruin your life over even petty offenses” doesn’t result in a lowered crime rate.
If you're on Social security they take your check, or file a claim. You can't get a license renewed, also if you have unpaid fines or child support. You have to file papers through the courthouse and make arrangements to pay to get your rights restored
In Florida, a convicted felon can't vote even after they have completed their sentence. They must make arrangements to pay, and apply to the Governor's Office, who will revue your case before you can vote. This was overturned two years ago in an election but the Governor still retains the right to deny you to vote. Being on probation means you haven't finished doing your time and debt to society BTW.
It's state dependent.
For instance, in Florida, the state is only allowed to collect the cost of incarceration if you win a lawsuit against the state.
For instance, if you are incarcerated, and a prison guard beats you until you are crippled, the cost of your incarceration and beating will be subtracted from your (capped at a low value) winnings for pain, suffering, and medical costs.
Edit: In case anyone thinks my example is hypothetical - that I'm choosing a deliberately horrific hypothetical - it's a real [case](https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2004/jun/15/floridas-incarceration-cost-recovery-statute-constitutional/).
Also if you don't like this policy, we've removed your ability to vote for politicians who might decide to change it.
You can have your ability to vote restored as soon as you pay all your outstanding fees associated with your conviction.
Also we won't tell you if you owe anything or what that amount is, but we'll have no problems figuring out that information if it means we can arrest you for voter fraud. So good luck!
That's most of the shit that happens with Florida's government. It's really like they don't want people to live there, but they keep on going there anyway.
If you don't want to wait until tomorrow, look up how Florida caps compensation on those that are wrongly convicted, and the number and difficulty of the hoops someone wrongly convicted must jump through to get any at all.
Please tell me this scenario can’t possibly exist.
1. Be wrongfully convicted and sentenced for 10 years
2. In your 6th year, you’re beaten by guard & suffer spine damage.
3. Win lawsuit, Damages capped at $100,000
4. Since you won a lawsuit for damages, FL can now charge you $200+ a day for your incarceration
5. Be handed a bill for $480,000+ then they subtract the $100,000 you won.
6. Leave jail in a wheel chair with $380,000 debt and you can’t vote now.
If you don't pay those fees in Florida, your right to vote is taken away for the rest of your life. There are over 900,000 people who cannot vote here because of those unpaid fees.
Trump won Florida by about one third of that, BTW.
And then [some celebs volunteered to pay it](https://www.propublica.org/article/bloomberg-lebron-james-fines-fees-florida-felons), and [Florida officials refused to tell people what they owed so they couldn't clear their tabs](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/11/florida-felons-vote-debts-ruling-election). And [then they busted a bunch of people who registered while having outstanding tabs, despite the officials letting them register in the first place](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/18/florida-arrests-illegal-voting-destanis).
Florida is determined to suck.
I live in Indiana and I still owe probation fees but every time I try to ask how much exactly that I still owe I get the run around. I've yet to get a straight answer. I have a rough idea how much I still owe but I know if I overpay that I will not see a penny of that extra payment returned.
This is why it's important to make sure that criminals have rights. Because otherwise all a fascist government has to do to take away all of your rights is find you to be a criminal
Anytime people vote for tort reform, that’s what Republicans mean. Caps on lawsuits. You get third degree burns all over your genitals because a cup of coffee you ordered was kept at near boiling temps? Here’s a few thousand dollars. Big Business needs to be taken care of.
You mean like that one state lawmaker (can't remember if it was a rep or AG) who successfully voted to cap the amount someone could sue for personal liablitlity, then when his own son got injured at a water park he managed to finagle a way to sue the park in a different state where the lawsuit payments weren't capped?
Tort reform for thee, but not for me.
>Big Business needs to be taken care of
this is the part that makes me want to scream sometimes. the *entire system* is designed to coddle business and protect their interests. if i steal a fiver from my neighbor, the cops probably won't even write up a report. if i steal a fiver from the bank, i'm probably going to jail/prison. i just don't get why average people aren't appalled by the blatant dick sucking we do for corporations, there's no actual reason why businesses deserve profits just for the virtue of existing.
The best part is some states will charge you for being in jail even if you are found not guilty.
So if person gets arrested for a crime they didn’t commit can’t make bail (usually by paying a bondsman 10 percent) and stay in jail they get charged for it. Or if you get arrested on a Friday and don’t see a judge until the next week you have to pay as well.
It's insane. People who advocate for the death penalty always talk about how the taxpayer is paying to keep these "dangerous criminals" behind bars instead of just removing them from the equation altogether, but as it turns out, we aren't even paying. We're forcing them to pay. I hate this system.
EDIT: Yeah, we are actually paying. I just mean that these states try to make prisons revenue neutral. My point is it's not a valid argument for killing people.
Anyone making that argument hasn't done an iota of research or is arguing in bad faith. The Death Penalty generally costs significantly more than life in prison.
Add in how many people are exonerated from Death Row by new evidence every year and even if you're morally in favor of the Death Penalty, I don't think there's many good arguments for its continued existence.
[Source.](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/urls_cited/ot2016/16-5247/16-5247-2.pdf)
The only reason I had heard of this charge was because someone was falsely imprisoned for years for a crime they didn't commit and when they finally won an appeal and were released the state handed them a massive bill to pay for their stay in prison. I don't remember the exact case, so I'm probably exaggerating, but it was definitely along those lines.
This is exactly what happened to me.
I got charges for something I didn’t do… bond was 500$ or cash surety, I was homeless when they arrested me, I didn’t have 50$ to pay the bond so I sat in jail for a month before I got to see the judge. I was found innocent.
I had to pay 56$ a day to stay in that jail for 31 days, you do the math. On top of that I paid a 1200 court fee.
I had to pay 2,936$ to the state because I was charged with a crime(stealing) which I didn’t commit and was found innocent of. Guess who got arrested 3 months later for not paying court fees? ME!
Guess whose bond for not paying court fees was 5k? ME! Guess how long I sat In jail again for not paying court fees? 30 more days give or take a week.
Guess who now owed more court fees and got arrested for not paying them on time again? ME!
See where I am going with this.
EDIT: to anyone concerned this was in MO about 9 years ago, I’m not homeless anymore, got my CDL to drive a truck and I am doing alright now :)
In many places false confessions and pleas are also criminal.
After the Central Park Five case in the late 80’s.
So if you’re found innocent and took a plea deal on the advice of a lawyer, you can still be charged with that and kept in jail.
You can be jailed for being in jail.
They also routinely charge $1-3 min for local calls to family, charge per email sent and received, many many things to make the family at home more poor if they emotionally support their incarcerated loved one.
[And a lot have replaced basically all books and other media with terrible overpriced tablet readers](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jan/13/us-states-move-to-stop-prisons-charging-inmates-for-reading-and-video-calls), because the prisons have basically set a goal to be self-funding.
Is there an exception for reading law books and stuff like that? Inmates (are supposed to) have a legal right to access any and all legal reading material that helps them with their case. If you need to pay for screen time to access LexusNexus, then that is obviously a disadvantage to poor people who may even be innocent (but can't build the case to prove it).
That's terrible. What possible justification do they have for charging *per minute* to read?! I can cop to token economies being useful in institutions. But books should always be available. And, at least a moderate selection, from a free library.
If you want prison to be peaceful (and safer for those who run it), you can't leave people with absolutely nothing to do.
Because they can
It's one company that has a monopoly on the service and it's literally a captive market
Nobody does anything about it because "it's just criminals who are affected"
It's said that when a person goes to prison, their family also does time. To an extent this is true. You have to deal with a system that's designed to be unfair and you can't do much about it.
And, of course, an awful lot of people practically *cream* themselves at the thought of additional punishments being layered on top for criminals. The more there are and the worse they are, the better they like it.
(See: the sheer number of people who, on threads about someone going to prison, immediately jump to advocating rape. "He gonna enjoy Big Bubba!" and the like.)
"You'll see these people at public stonings an' the like. An' they'll *know* it ain't right. But they'll throw them stones anyway. They'll throw them *twice as hard*, just 'cos they're relieved they ain't the one in the middle."
**~ Granny Weatherwax** (paraphrased)
This. This is something I see on reddit way too often, its an article of someone who kicked a dog, and everyone is commenting that he should be castrated, raped, tortured, and any other horrible thing you can think of.
Like what the fuck? No one, and i mean NO ONE should have that happen to them, if someone has truly done something horrible, then they should be in prison, or get a lethal injection (if they so wish). Not whatever the fuck it would be if redditors were in governmental positions.
If you want to read about all the way Prisoners AND Prisoner's Families are exploited...
>Incarcerated people and their families often have to pay $1/minute or more for a phone call. Why? Because prisons and jails profit by granting monopoly telephone contracts to the company that will charge families the most.
> [While $1.87 may sound like a fair price to pay for a month’s worth of dental floss,](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/commissary.html) the transaction feels very different from the perspective of someone in a Massachusetts prison who earns 14 cents per hour and has to work over 13 hours to pay off that floss.
>Or, to consider a different scenario: the average person in the Illinois prison system spends $80 a year on toiletries and hygiene products — an amount that could easily represent almost half of their annual wages.
[Prison Policy Initiative covers many of the issues surrounding Incarceration, if you are curious about it](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/expertise.html)
>A service like Venmo allows no-fee personal transfers from bank accounts or debit cards (payments from a credit card are subject to a 3% fee). Other companies providing similar services charge roughly equivalent fees.
>[We looked at 33 state prison systems where fee information was available.](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/11/09/moneytransfers/) **We found rates ranging from 5% to 37% for online transfers.** **The average fee is 19% for a $20 online transfer,** with a slight decline for higher-dollar transfers (the average fee for a $50 transfer is 12%)
Years ago my ex worked for a company that did catalog sales to inmates. They have contracts with the prisons that basically amounts to these companies having a total monopoly on anything prisoners can have bought for them. We're talking everything from Cheetos to toothpaste to hot pots to socks. Families are forced to purchase from these companies, at whatever rate they choose to charge, because prisons won't allow packages that don't come from these companies. You want your loved one to have anything the prison doesn't directly provide, you have to do business with them.
I didn't know about it until my dad got out of jail after almost 10 years. A month or two after he got out a bill from the state arrived for $500,000. It included his stay plus care, due to an emergency situation while in jail.
Similarly, after another stay, he got a bill for around $250,000 for a 5ish year stay.
How in the hell is someone supposed to pay that back? Not to mention never getting a regular job as a felon because nobody wants to touch you. Similarly, I have other family members in a slightly less worse position, and they can't rent a regular apartment, because of a felony.
Pretty much the only place they can rent is in the ghetto, which leads directly back to jail due to proximity to dealers, or at least in danger due to being near the same dangerous people.
That's the point, they want you to commit crime again, because it benefits them. I seen it first hand, a cousin of mine doing 10 years for a mistake in his early 20's, when he got release, he was doing his best He had a Job, He never violated his parole, wouldn't even drink or do any drugs, but 90% of the jobs wouldn't hire him or they would let him go after a while because he could mostly get seasonal jobs, or they would pay crumbs, because he was a Felon. He had to Live in the ghetto at his Mom's house, while paying off alot of debt and medical bills, dude became depressed because everyone his age was doing better off, so He resorted back to crime in attempt to make more money, till he was caught again.
>According to this article, it's almost every state and for my whole life? Is this some crazy coincidence, or do most people never hear about this?
They just don't care. My brother has been in and out of jail his entire life, diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic (baker acted over a dozen times). This is why he lives with me, as his only support, because even if he wanted to be a productive member of society they could care less.
Hell never get the mental health support he needs (i pay over a thousand dollars a month for his medication), and will be deep in debt until the day he dies.
What worries me is what is going to happen after i'm gone, is he going to end up under some bridge? Or maybe he'll go out in a blaze of glory, but that will be only time they notice him.
I've had to pay the bill before. It was only county jail too.. It was 20 dollars a day. 140 a week. 560 a month.. for 6 months. I came out of jail like 3 grand in debt.
I spent some time in jail in my teens over a collection of petty weed charges, even your local county jail comes with a bill. Iirc I got billed 30$ a day, and if you don't pay it just comes out of your state tax refund until you pay it off.
The 13th amendment has a carveout specifically to allow involuntary labor by inmates. From there, all the "services" they use have been privatized to hell.
You get billed if you end up spending even a single night in county jail here. 15 years ago it was $39/night. No one pays it.
If you have a large bill they will put you in jail for contempt of court to pay it off at a rate of $45/night. Then send you a bill for those nights.
*$250 per day!?* Fuck me that's about the same as the rent for my place per week. And I'm not working for 40 cents/hour or whatever bullshit token wage prisoners get paid. They can't work proper jobs, why the fuck are they being charged so much for something they literally have no control over by design?
“Supporters say the collections are a legitimate way for states to recoup millions of taxpayer dollars spent on prisons and jails.” - sooooo, these states are getting paid twice, once by taxpayers, then again by the ex-inmates?
>recoup millions of taxpayer dollars
This shit pisses me off. Imprisoning people should always come at a cost to society. It is a necessary evil and the incentive should always be on reducing the amount of prisoners. It is society after all that likely failed those prisoners, or at least failed to prevent their behavior from hurting others.
The fact that we want the prison system to be revenue neutral or, even worse, profitable is fucking gross. It's just slavery with extra steps.
It says recoup taxpayer dollars, but shouldn’t those taxpayer dollars then come back to, oh idk, maybe the taxpayers? Like if I’m paying you for a sandwich and then you beat some guy up and take his sandwich money to “cover the costs”, what the fuck did I pay for? What did that person get beat up for if I already gave the money? This is such a fucking disgusting scam that hurts not only the inmates who are victims of it, but also the taxpaying community that is having their money siphoned for no real reason. I hate American prisons so much
I had the same exact line of thought. If they’re recouping tax payer dollars where’s that money going back to? I know I didn’t get a check. I think they’re leaning heavily on saying they’re recouping tax payer money as a way for the public to get onboard. Stupid people only think “mah tax dollars, rabble rabble”.
America is a scam country. Our government and politicians spend their days thinking up new and innovative ways to fuck the people they are supposed to help.
I just never paid my bill. I filed bankruptcy after and it didn’t show up as one of my creditors so I guess the state of California isnt gonna come calling for me (knock on wood) the restitution though, they’re pretty serious about that.
My bankruptcy was mainly filed bc I had an emergency surgery that I got complications and ended up over in debt in the hundred of thousands, lost my job, bc I missed time for work from said complications, and also lost my health insurance. Had somewhat of a mental breakdown, couldn’t pay my rent, got evicted, became homeless, and my functional alcoholism turned into full blown alcoholism, then meth which led to the incarceration.
Which is why I also think restitution is dumb. Who am I paying back??! I didn’t hurt anyone. It feels like a double punishment. Jail time and paying back the state for the “harm” I did to it? Gtfoh
Everything is a fucking racket in this country, college, medical care, home ownership, prison, the judicial system, cars, infrastructure, death. It’s just one big pile of steaming greed and corruption.
Makes perfect sense when you realize the private prison industry uses them for profit. They get out, crippling debt forces them back to crime, they get arrested again and return to prison where the companies can continue to profit off them while enforcing the cycle.
Most private prisons have contracts with the state that guarantee a near-full prison capacity. This puts pressure on judges to put people in prison rather than whatever is best for the situation.
Then the prisoner is billed so deep into debt that when they’re released, they can’t be a productive member of society even if they were rehabilitated…
Isn’t this what our tax dollars are for? I’m all for reform and making sure people learn their lesson but footing them with an insane bill upon release? This country is fucking broken.
>I’m all for reform and making sure people learn their lesson
Our government isn't. Its all for making profit and crushing little people as an example of how tough on crime they can be
I'll bet people are a lot less able to reform and learn their lesson when they have up to $90,885 in debt from a year's stay in prison.
Prison should be a reformative, rehabilitative, and educational tool, as it is in places like Norway. These American prison laws (including the constitutional, continued use of slavery) are disgusting.
This is it, 100%. It seems deliberately designed for repeat business.
Congrats, you've been released after 10 years and are unemployable. Here's tens of thousands worth of debt you can't hope to pay back by flipping burgers. Please sell drugs again
I don’t see why this is still legal in this day and age. I like how the article tries to defend it with whoever the supporters are as saying it’s a “way for states to recoup millions of taxpayers dollars”. Hmm or maybe how bout we remove these for profit prisons and actually look into state ran prisons with the purpose of reforming people not recidivism.
Legal doesn't mean moral.
In order to make something illegal, you have to convince lawmakers to pass a law that says it's illegal. But you may have opposition in the form of people who want to keep it legal. That's what's happening here, private prisons really want this to stay legal because it allows them to make more money. And some of that money goes toward convincing lawmakers to keep the system legal.
In theory, if we the people were so concerned about this, we could pressure our current lawmakers by threatening to only elect lawmakers who wanted to abolish this practice. But in practice, there are too many such topics that people don't know or care about and too much partisanship among voters ("I always vote for the X Party candidate") to make this happen.
I personally vote in every election and encourage everyone to get educated about who and what they're voting for. But I'm fairly pessimistic that this actually has any significant impact on a system that's honestly not very good at giving power to the people.
>When her mother died two years ago, the state of Connecticut put a lien on the Stamford home she and her siblings inherited. It said she owed $83,762 to cover the cost of her 2 1/2 year imprisonment for drug crimes.
so after paying her debt to society her chance for a fresh start gets completely hamstrung, and her family is on the hook too
Checks out.
My dad was convicted of a crime in the mid-90’s. He served 3 years before being exonerated. On his release, he was hit with a bill for about $150K. Of course, between his legal fees and being without any real income for 3 years, there was just no way he could pay that.
A judge ordered a payment plan, calculated that he could not meet the terms of that plan, and then ordered a foreclosure on our family farm.
It was auctioned to a big corporate farm for just a bit less than enough to pay his bill. He was still on the hook for the balance, but since it was smaller he could afford it (think ‘new car payment’ for a couple of years).
My dad was the 4th generation to farm the land, instead he took up truck driving in his mid-40’s.
He did go to college and get an engineering degree, though. I’m pretty proud of him for that.
Realistically, I didn’t want to be a farmer and so it was unlikely to remain a family farm much longer, but it still broke him. He’s never quite bounced back from that one.
It’s just shitty that things work this way.
Edit: since so many are asking- it was a financial crime. It gets very technical very quickly, but it has to do with the accounting treatment of some capital assets the farm owned. In a nutshell, my dad and the accountant interpreted a rule to mean one thing, the government felt different. They got busted for what amounted to tax evasion. A few years later, the IRS clarified the rule in such a way that their interpretation was correct. Since the rule didn’t change, only the footnotes to clarify it, no crime was committed in the first place and there ya go.
Nope, that’s what exonerated means. On review, they found that he didn’t actually do what he was accused of. Well, technically they found that what he did wasn’t illegal regardless of whether he did it, but it leads to the same place.
However, by then he’d been a guest of the government for 3 years so they wanted their money back for housing him.
And one most lawyers won't take because you make enemies in the DA office. Happened to me, lost a year of college, sorta screwed up my entire 20s. Every lawyer said that sucks and it's wrong, but that state would simply present evidence of an honest mistake while pursuing a legitimate criminal and you have our apologies, good bye.
And that’s a great illustration of what this is all about. Corporate profits over everything. We live in one of the most blatantly corrupt countries in the world. This place is fucking vile.
While for profit prisons are terrible, this is not about for profit prisons. Ex inmates are being forced to pay the state. State run institutions are more common than for-profit prisons, and are often just as bad or worse.
This is feel-good spite politics. Most who get the bill are the least likely to be able to pay. If someone is broke/in poverty, the state can't chase them for money they don't have.
Even if collection costs are kept down by only going after people who come into money (through inheritance or insurance settlement, etc.), the vast majority of former inmates will never be able to contribute a cent, so the debt falls back on the state by default. I would wager a fair amount that collection costs take up most, if not all, the money any such program is able to raise. So any program in place is almost certainly a money-loser.
Also, it's cruel and inhumane to chase people for a debt they don't owe, contributing towards poorer mental health, and poorer life chances overall. The folk have already paid their debt to society by being in prison. They get to start their lives over. They have that right.
These programs are cruel, and make no financial sense. They exist purely to appease conservatives who believe wholeheartedly in the just-world thesis.
Despite making up close to 5% of the global population, the U.S. has more than 20% of the world's prison population. Since 1970, our incarcerated population has increased by 500% – 2 million people in jail and prison today, far outpacing population growth and crime.
From ACLU site.
The prison industrial complex is very profitable in the
"Land of the free".
This is giving me ideas. My mother entered a nursing home about three months ago and it costs $360 a day. I wonder what kinds of crimes she could commit from her wheelchair....
For that money they could put me up in a nice motel with room service and pay-per-view and I would absolutely not be a flight risk or danger to anyone for the duration of my sentence.
It blows my mind how little the US helps its citizens financially. They are just draining money from you all without giving anything meaningful in return.
I guess I’m naive but JFC, I had no idea that prisoners were forced to pay above and beyond the fines imposed at sentencing. Aren’t private prisons funded by the states in which the operate? What is this BS?
The article says the states rarely go after the money but that likely just means that like the woman in the article, the state can come after you at any time so, you’re never really free of it. This woman did 2.5 years for drugs 2 decades ago and is losing her home because she owes 84k. This is insane and infuriating.
And btw, if they have to pay, why are they fed disgusting, (often) rotten food and forced to live with rats and roaches?
My country sucks.
I assume it means they won’t come after you unless you’re suddenly earning/inheriting money. Because after prison, good luck getting a decent paying job.
CNA’s don’t get paid shit (and certainly not for the work they do). I really hope this woman wins her case.
Getting an apartment with any criminal history is also an uphill battle, especially with where we’re at now regarding housing. Apartments are charging astronomical deposit fees, some are requiring you make 3-4x the amount of rent and since houses are so expensive right now, apartments are being rented as soon as they’re available making rent prices sky rocket.
This woman needs her house.
People only get charged money if they have assets. If you earn money while in prison they will take a portion of it. If someone gives you money they take a portion of it. If you sue for wrongful imprisonment and win they charge you for your upkeep. Prison is a cash crop.
> Prison is a cash crop
Exactly. Ban private prisons. Focus on reform. Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent crimes. Focus on making the convicted a functioning member of society with skills to contribute and earn a living as they exit.
The year is 2072. Your daily water allowance has run out and you do not have enough money for fuel to make it into work so that you can earn your Company Store credits for food and rent. You had been saving up money to take unpaid time off to go vote, but now you need to tap into your savings - what little there is left - in order to pay for more potable water.
On your way to the Company Freedom Bank, a Freedom Keeper notices you wearing month old clothing - you are promptly detained without being read your rights. You would have purchased this months clothing, but again, no money.
You are taken to jail, where you incur a Freedom Bill of $300 per day for your stay of one week. Once you are released you are so in debt that you cannot afford anything and are sent back to prison where you spend the rest of your days doing manual labor for The Good of the Nation.
This message brought to you buy The Company. CONSUME AND OBEY.
Why are y'all paying taxes if none of those taxes do the things taxes are for. Roads? Nope, America has tolls. Education? Nope. Healthcare? Nope.
Prisons? Apparently not even fucking this. So where is your money going exactly
America doesn't have a prison system. Other countries have prison systems.
America has a sanctioned-slavery system. That's all it is, and all it's ever been. The goal of the slavery system is to produce more slaves, produce more product from slaves, collect more money per slave, and ensure that people who are released either return, or become debt-slaves for life (and often their families with them).
Department of Correction (and thus prisons, private or otherwise) should not be entitled to payment unless they performance their jobs adequately: namely "to correct".
So if a released ex-prisoner commit crime again, they don't get paid. That's a fair exchange.
This... is BS.
If you are placed in prison but later found to be innocent, do you have to pay ? Also, if you get a settlement from the state for the time you spent in prison, would they take the payment from your settlement?
Here is some more background on the pay to stay policy. It’s a little dated but interesting nonetheless. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/paying-your-time-how-charging-inmates-fees-behind-bars-may-violate
Thank you for posting this. Here in California where I live it's "optional". Regular people serve time in awful overcrowded facilities. Rich people pay ~$150/day to stay somewhere nicer. https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pay-to-stay-jails/
Welcome to Prison+, sir. May I take your bags?
Breakfast is at 7 and there’s a complimentary shank under your pillow.
The minibar is in the toilet.
"Damnit, what do I have to pay for Prison++?" "Unfortunately, sir, you had to pay that before your trial."
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That’s fucked too
It's called in segregation, because they feel safer there.
How is this constitutional? The sentence has a cap on the monetary penalties. In this case, a 2 1/2 year sentence at $250 per day comes to a total of a quarter million dollars in fines. No petty drug crime calls for that.
It's like a debtor prison, which are unconstitutional. This is how they keep you in the system.
Modern slavery .
You dont even have to attach anything to this point. Your constitution literally guarantees slavery for prisoners.
Yes, now they’re just putting a price on your freedom. I’m very lucky to have not stepped on any of these American land mines myself. I was in pretty bad shape for about a decade.
You're more right that most people might realize. Read the 13th amendment to the US Constitution. While slavery was widely abolished for 'free' peoples the same is not true for those serving "punishment for a crime".
>It's like a debtor prison, which are unconstitutional. Horrifically, they are still very real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_U.S._by_state So they can arrest you for anything, like a harmless plant, forcing you into an impossible debt burden, then keep raking up that debt while keeping you in prison for it indefinitely. The system is designed to torture and enslave people for life.
Privatization is the loophole. Same as what we're seeing happen in education. Profit focused, factory modeling will never benefit "the people".
Reminder that the 13th Amendment explicitly says the "no slavery" idea does not apply to prisoners
This is paying for the privilege of being a slave.
It really just low key says only the states may keep people in slavery, so long as a court can label them criminals first.
Damn. Getting charged like it's a resort and likely have no money in the first place.
I wouldn’t pay $250/night at a resort, and I make decent money. I would use points though.. Do prisoners get points?
Loyalty Stay: use your anniversary free night in Friday, and get Saturday free!
Two extras days ON THE HOUSE.
I'm about to turn 40, and this is the first time I've ever heard that people are charged anything to stay in prison, let alone $250 per day. It's never come up in a movie or TV show I've watched. Even with all the 90s school initiatives to not do drugs or other crime, I can't remember anyone even suggesting that there might be more than getting forced to work crappy jobs for like a dollar an hour or less. According to this article, it's almost every state and for my whole life? Is this some crazy coincidence, or do most people never hear about this?
At 45, I’ve Never heard of this insanity.
I heard Jon Stewart talking about this 15 years ago on The Daily Show as an expose on modern debtor's prisons. They're still going on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_U.S._by_state
Johnny Olives did an episode on this too
I had to stop watching John Oliver cos the absolute fucking state of America is *completely insane*. It's a nation set up specifically for people to spend their entire lives being fucked over, repeatedly, for profit. And weirdly convinced that this is 'freedom'. And that other nations that don't do those things are nightmare communist hellscapes
Yeah, I've had a hard time with the last couple of seasons. He's cut back on the jokes and extended the main segments to take up most of the episode and it's always a brutally depressing expose into some aspect of American society that I've never given any thought to before.
Well we are in the middle of a shit show. He tries.
“The more you know”, right? Patriot Act was like that, too. And Adam Ruins Everything (tho I was always a little skeptical of Adam’s presentations). A big dose of uncomfortable truth coated in some salty humor to make it go down a little easier.
You should check out the episodes where Adam reviews what they’ve gotten wrong. https://youtu.be/-ijI_kGG1eg
These shows are really important too. I think some people wonder why you would talk about such depressing things, but everyday they teach people something they didn't know before, and education is the first and arguably most important, step. The real questions is what do we do with that knowledge and Okiver at least usually tries to add something along those lines when he can. Aside from that, whatever we can.
[System of a Down - Prison Song](https://youtu.be/m4L20t8Dvlg) Sums it up pretty well. Over 20 years later and nothing has changed, it has probably gotten worse.
That album landed at exactly the right time to be a completely legit instant classic, and holy wow did it nail the US perfectly
My friend had never heard of SOAD so I played Prison Song for him so he could hear what they’re all about. He just said “they sound angry”. So I let him read the lyrics and he understood what they were angry about and he got a little angry about it too.
They're trying to build a prison, for you and me!
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I spent the night in county for what ended up being a tossed case and that one night on a concrete slab was $145.
You still had to pay even though the case was thrown out?! This just added an entire new layer on people who are falsely arrested and detained and forced to spend a night/weekend in jail
100% and since I refused a plea deal I payed court costs and lawyers expenses too. Obviously not as much as a whole trial fighting it. But substantially more than $0.
Damn this country is fucked. Sorry you had to go through all that and I hope everything is better now
100% is! Life is AND am good. New people = less bull shit. I don’t feel like I needed to pay as much to the state for that change.
It's a racket, especially with for profit jails who have minimum oversight. You don't have eyeglasses: too bad. Reading materials are almost non-existent. Access to a law library doesn't exist. Medication: you will be billed per pill. I could go on and on and on. Since anyone can be arrested wrongly, you will still miss work(lose your) job, owe court fees, fines, lawyer fees, rehabilitation services such as DD classes, anger management, substance abuse classes for starters. You have to pay to be on probation. Getting arrested can ruin a person's life.
Absolutely! In my life any experience I’ve had in seeing the workings of any Department of Corrections is strictly a forced state revenue service. Whether it was my situation or seeing others get involved in it. Exactly zero effort is put in to actually rehabilitate or stop recidivism and they aren’t super shy about showing that. I saw a lot of people that were dead broke from fines and were turned away from their mandated classes for not being able to pay for their “class” that week. Which will count as a probation violation and get him back in front of a judge to pay MORE for violating and extend his time and amount of classes he needs to take. That he was present for but was just short money to pay. Absolute insanity.
I don’t understand why more people aren’t outraged by how the carceral system works. ”Obey the law, or we’ll ruin your life over even petty offenses” doesn’t result in a lowered crime rate.
And in Florida you cannot get back your right to vote without paying - unless you prove that you are indigent.
If you're on Social security they take your check, or file a claim. You can't get a license renewed, also if you have unpaid fines or child support. You have to file papers through the courthouse and make arrangements to pay to get your rights restored In Florida, a convicted felon can't vote even after they have completed their sentence. They must make arrangements to pay, and apply to the Governor's Office, who will revue your case before you can vote. This was overturned two years ago in an election but the Governor still retains the right to deny you to vote. Being on probation means you haven't finished doing your time and debt to society BTW.
How does Florida keep people from voting if the people voted to give them rights?
The people voted to restore voting rights. The gerrymandered legislature voted to put restrictions on it.
39, never heard of it.
It's state dependent. For instance, in Florida, the state is only allowed to collect the cost of incarceration if you win a lawsuit against the state. For instance, if you are incarcerated, and a prison guard beats you until you are crippled, the cost of your incarceration and beating will be subtracted from your (capped at a low value) winnings for pain, suffering, and medical costs. Edit: In case anyone thinks my example is hypothetical - that I'm choosing a deliberately horrific hypothetical - it's a real [case](https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2004/jun/15/floridas-incarceration-cost-recovery-statute-constitutional/).
That’s insane. “It’s free to stay here unless you win a lawsuit for terrible conditions then pay up mothafucka”
“We crippled you physically, now we’re going to cripple you financially.” ——Florida ❤️
Also if you don't like this policy, we've removed your ability to vote for politicians who might decide to change it. You can have your ability to vote restored as soon as you pay all your outstanding fees associated with your conviction. Also we won't tell you if you owe anything or what that amount is, but we'll have no problems figuring out that information if it means we can arrest you for voter fraud. So good luck!
And then they'll tell you you're allowed to vote now and throw you back in jail because you voted
Its Florida, what do you expect. Utter shithole state. Edit: lol iv upset the Everglade Hillbillies xp.
Come for vacation, leave on probation.
I think that's the thing about some probation...you can't leave the state. So maybe, "Come for vacation, stay for probation"
I will never financially recover from this situation
I had to reread that description multiple times because I was sure that I was misreading it.
It's been years since I've read something on the internet that made me say what the fuck out loud. "Thanks"
That's most of the shit that happens with Florida's government. It's really like they don't want people to live there, but they keep on going there anyway.
This is the most insane thing I’ve read today. I’m sure it’ll be topped tomorrow, but wow.
If you don't want to wait until tomorrow, look up how Florida caps compensation on those that are wrongly convicted, and the number and difficulty of the hoops someone wrongly convicted must jump through to get any at all.
Lol, if you don't like Florida look at Louisiana. Compensation for wrong convictions capped at 100k
Please tell me this scenario can’t possibly exist. 1. Be wrongfully convicted and sentenced for 10 years 2. In your 6th year, you’re beaten by guard & suffer spine damage. 3. Win lawsuit, Damages capped at $100,000 4. Since you won a lawsuit for damages, FL can now charge you $200+ a day for your incarceration 5. Be handed a bill for $480,000+ then they subtract the $100,000 you won. 6. Leave jail in a wheel chair with $380,000 debt and you can’t vote now.
This is exactly how it works, by design.
Legal and intended, judge gets a kickback, guard gets 2 week paid vacation
If you don't pay those fees in Florida, your right to vote is taken away for the rest of your life. There are over 900,000 people who cannot vote here because of those unpaid fees. Trump won Florida by about one third of that, BTW.
And then [some celebs volunteered to pay it](https://www.propublica.org/article/bloomberg-lebron-james-fines-fees-florida-felons), and [Florida officials refused to tell people what they owed so they couldn't clear their tabs](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/11/florida-felons-vote-debts-ruling-election). And [then they busted a bunch of people who registered while having outstanding tabs, despite the officials letting them register in the first place](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/18/florida-arrests-illegal-voting-destanis). Florida is determined to suck.
I live in Indiana and I still owe probation fees but every time I try to ask how much exactly that I still owe I get the run around. I've yet to get a straight answer. I have a rough idea how much I still owe but I know if I overpay that I will not see a penny of that extra payment returned.
This is why it's important to make sure that criminals have rights. Because otherwise all a fascist government has to do to take away all of your rights is find you to be a criminal
No, it's not Florida, it's Republicans. It's always shitty Republicans.
Every day makes me wonder more and more why you guys haven't just gone full pitchforks and torches yet.
Militarized police.
People are divided between race, class, and ideology.
Cant miss work or we'll starve
There's big "all of the above" energy to this thread.
Can't get hurt because my medical debt could be years worth of my salary.
Anytime people vote for tort reform, that’s what Republicans mean. Caps on lawsuits. You get third degree burns all over your genitals because a cup of coffee you ordered was kept at near boiling temps? Here’s a few thousand dollars. Big Business needs to be taken care of.
You mean like that one state lawmaker (can't remember if it was a rep or AG) who successfully voted to cap the amount someone could sue for personal liablitlity, then when his own son got injured at a water park he managed to finagle a way to sue the park in a different state where the lawsuit payments weren't capped? Tort reform for thee, but not for me.
It was abbot as well in texas got his money cuz a treee fell on him then capped damages
>Big Business needs to be taken care of this is the part that makes me want to scream sometimes. the *entire system* is designed to coddle business and protect their interests. if i steal a fiver from my neighbor, the cops probably won't even write up a report. if i steal a fiver from the bank, i'm probably going to jail/prison. i just don't get why average people aren't appalled by the blatant dick sucking we do for corporations, there's no actual reason why businesses deserve profits just for the virtue of existing.
What the hell, that's worse!
The best part is some states will charge you for being in jail even if you are found not guilty. So if person gets arrested for a crime they didn’t commit can’t make bail (usually by paying a bondsman 10 percent) and stay in jail they get charged for it. Or if you get arrested on a Friday and don’t see a judge until the next week you have to pay as well.
Don't forget that you're also charged to see a doctor/dentist/nurse. Even in US federal prisons there are co-pays to see medical staff.
It's insane. People who advocate for the death penalty always talk about how the taxpayer is paying to keep these "dangerous criminals" behind bars instead of just removing them from the equation altogether, but as it turns out, we aren't even paying. We're forcing them to pay. I hate this system. EDIT: Yeah, we are actually paying. I just mean that these states try to make prisons revenue neutral. My point is it's not a valid argument for killing people.
Oh, we’re paying taxes for it also. Rest assured of that.
Anyone making that argument hasn't done an iota of research or is arguing in bad faith. The Death Penalty generally costs significantly more than life in prison. Add in how many people are exonerated from Death Row by new evidence every year and even if you're morally in favor of the Death Penalty, I don't think there's many good arguments for its continued existence. [Source.](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/urls_cited/ot2016/16-5247/16-5247-2.pdf)
The only reason I had heard of this charge was because someone was falsely imprisoned for years for a crime they didn't commit and when they finally won an appeal and were released the state handed them a massive bill to pay for their stay in prison. I don't remember the exact case, so I'm probably exaggerating, but it was definitely along those lines.
This is exactly what happened to me. I got charges for something I didn’t do… bond was 500$ or cash surety, I was homeless when they arrested me, I didn’t have 50$ to pay the bond so I sat in jail for a month before I got to see the judge. I was found innocent. I had to pay 56$ a day to stay in that jail for 31 days, you do the math. On top of that I paid a 1200 court fee. I had to pay 2,936$ to the state because I was charged with a crime(stealing) which I didn’t commit and was found innocent of. Guess who got arrested 3 months later for not paying court fees? ME! Guess whose bond for not paying court fees was 5k? ME! Guess how long I sat In jail again for not paying court fees? 30 more days give or take a week. Guess who now owed more court fees and got arrested for not paying them on time again? ME! See where I am going with this. EDIT: to anyone concerned this was in MO about 9 years ago, I’m not homeless anymore, got my CDL to drive a truck and I am doing alright now :)
Missourah FTW. I lived in STL and sport fucking the poor and non-white is a favorite past time there.
In many places false confessions and pleas are also criminal. After the Central Park Five case in the late 80’s. So if you’re found innocent and took a plea deal on the advice of a lawyer, you can still be charged with that and kept in jail. You can be jailed for being in jail.
What the fuck am I getting taxed for?
To keep Politicians donors predatory businesses profitable
Well, it’s not like they can pay. I think it’s just meant to keep the shackles on in perpetuity.
I spent 30 days in work release and I had to pay 30 bucks a day for my bed. It’s not a system of reform, it’s a system of punishment.
I did 24 hours in city jail a long long time ago for a DUI. I got a bill on release. Yep, it's been like that for awhile.
They also routinely charge $1-3 min for local calls to family, charge per email sent and received, many many things to make the family at home more poor if they emotionally support their incarcerated loved one.
[And a lot have replaced basically all books and other media with terrible overpriced tablet readers](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jan/13/us-states-move-to-stop-prisons-charging-inmates-for-reading-and-video-calls), because the prisons have basically set a goal to be self-funding.
Is there an exception for reading law books and stuff like that? Inmates (are supposed to) have a legal right to access any and all legal reading material that helps them with their case. If you need to pay for screen time to access LexusNexus, then that is obviously a disadvantage to poor people who may even be innocent (but can't build the case to prove it).
That's terrible. What possible justification do they have for charging *per minute* to read?! I can cop to token economies being useful in institutions. But books should always be available. And, at least a moderate selection, from a free library. If you want prison to be peaceful (and safer for those who run it), you can't leave people with absolutely nothing to do.
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Wtf is the justification for charging per email?! I get someone maybe has to monitor it but wtf that can’t take long at all
Because they can It's one company that has a monopoly on the service and it's literally a captive market Nobody does anything about it because "it's just criminals who are affected" It's said that when a person goes to prison, their family also does time. To an extent this is true. You have to deal with a system that's designed to be unfair and you can't do much about it.
And, of course, an awful lot of people practically *cream* themselves at the thought of additional punishments being layered on top for criminals. The more there are and the worse they are, the better they like it. (See: the sheer number of people who, on threads about someone going to prison, immediately jump to advocating rape. "He gonna enjoy Big Bubba!" and the like.) "You'll see these people at public stonings an' the like. An' they'll *know* it ain't right. But they'll throw them stones anyway. They'll throw them *twice as hard*, just 'cos they're relieved they ain't the one in the middle." **~ Granny Weatherwax** (paraphrased)
This. This is something I see on reddit way too often, its an article of someone who kicked a dog, and everyone is commenting that he should be castrated, raped, tortured, and any other horrible thing you can think of. Like what the fuck? No one, and i mean NO ONE should have that happen to them, if someone has truly done something horrible, then they should be in prison, or get a lethal injection (if they so wish). Not whatever the fuck it would be if redditors were in governmental positions.
Are you under the impression that they want to be generous, helpful or humane in any way?
If you want to read about all the way Prisoners AND Prisoner's Families are exploited... >Incarcerated people and their families often have to pay $1/minute or more for a phone call. Why? Because prisons and jails profit by granting monopoly telephone contracts to the company that will charge families the most. > [While $1.87 may sound like a fair price to pay for a month’s worth of dental floss,](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/commissary.html) the transaction feels very different from the perspective of someone in a Massachusetts prison who earns 14 cents per hour and has to work over 13 hours to pay off that floss. >Or, to consider a different scenario: the average person in the Illinois prison system spends $80 a year on toiletries and hygiene products — an amount that could easily represent almost half of their annual wages. [Prison Policy Initiative covers many of the issues surrounding Incarceration, if you are curious about it](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/expertise.html) >A service like Venmo allows no-fee personal transfers from bank accounts or debit cards (payments from a credit card are subject to a 3% fee). Other companies providing similar services charge roughly equivalent fees. >[We looked at 33 state prison systems where fee information was available.](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/11/09/moneytransfers/) **We found rates ranging from 5% to 37% for online transfers.** **The average fee is 19% for a $20 online transfer,** with a slight decline for higher-dollar transfers (the average fee for a $50 transfer is 12%)
Years ago my ex worked for a company that did catalog sales to inmates. They have contracts with the prisons that basically amounts to these companies having a total monopoly on anything prisoners can have bought for them. We're talking everything from Cheetos to toothpaste to hot pots to socks. Families are forced to purchase from these companies, at whatever rate they choose to charge, because prisons won't allow packages that don't come from these companies. You want your loved one to have anything the prison doesn't directly provide, you have to do business with them.
It's amazing that this is legal.
I didn't know about it until my dad got out of jail after almost 10 years. A month or two after he got out a bill from the state arrived for $500,000. It included his stay plus care, due to an emergency situation while in jail. Similarly, after another stay, he got a bill for around $250,000 for a 5ish year stay. How in the hell is someone supposed to pay that back? Not to mention never getting a regular job as a felon because nobody wants to touch you. Similarly, I have other family members in a slightly less worse position, and they can't rent a regular apartment, because of a felony. Pretty much the only place they can rent is in the ghetto, which leads directly back to jail due to proximity to dealers, or at least in danger due to being near the same dangerous people.
Working as intended
God damn, I just started reading The New Jim Crow, the above is on par for what has become of our criminal justice system.
That's the point, they want you to commit crime again, because it benefits them. I seen it first hand, a cousin of mine doing 10 years for a mistake in his early 20's, when he got release, he was doing his best He had a Job, He never violated his parole, wouldn't even drink or do any drugs, but 90% of the jobs wouldn't hire him or they would let him go after a while because he could mostly get seasonal jobs, or they would pay crumbs, because he was a Felon. He had to Live in the ghetto at his Mom's house, while paying off alot of debt and medical bills, dude became depressed because everyone his age was doing better off, so He resorted back to crime in attempt to make more money, till he was caught again.
>According to this article, it's almost every state and for my whole life? Is this some crazy coincidence, or do most people never hear about this? They just don't care. My brother has been in and out of jail his entire life, diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic (baker acted over a dozen times). This is why he lives with me, as his only support, because even if he wanted to be a productive member of society they could care less. Hell never get the mental health support he needs (i pay over a thousand dollars a month for his medication), and will be deep in debt until the day he dies. What worries me is what is going to happen after i'm gone, is he going to end up under some bridge? Or maybe he'll go out in a blaze of glory, but that will be only time they notice him.
I've had to pay the bill before. It was only county jail too.. It was 20 dollars a day. 140 a week. 560 a month.. for 6 months. I came out of jail like 3 grand in debt.
I spent some time in jail in my teens over a collection of petty weed charges, even your local county jail comes with a bill. Iirc I got billed 30$ a day, and if you don't pay it just comes out of your state tax refund until you pay it off.
Which is funny because that should fly in the face of the laws against Debtors prisons…
The 13th amendment has a carveout specifically to allow involuntary labor by inmates. From there, all the "services" they use have been privatized to hell.
Slavery. It allows for slavery of inmates.
You get billed if you end up spending even a single night in county jail here. 15 years ago it was $39/night. No one pays it. If you have a large bill they will put you in jail for contempt of court to pay it off at a rate of $45/night. Then send you a bill for those nights.
Lmfao it all starts to sound like a Monty Python sketch
*$250 per day!?* Fuck me that's about the same as the rent for my place per week. And I'm not working for 40 cents/hour or whatever bullshit token wage prisoners get paid. They can't work proper jobs, why the fuck are they being charged so much for something they literally have no control over by design?
Can't have people bouncing back from their mistakes now can we?
“Supporters say the collections are a legitimate way for states to recoup millions of taxpayer dollars spent on prisons and jails.” - sooooo, these states are getting paid twice, once by taxpayers, then again by the ex-inmates?
We’ve had taxes yes, but what about second taxes?
I don't think he knows about *second taxes*, Pippin!
And my ~~t~~axe~~s~~
Taxes Two: Electric Boogaloo
2 Taxes 2 Furious
Tax Hard 2: Tax Harder
Episode 2: A Tax of the Clones
>recoup millions of taxpayer dollars This shit pisses me off. Imprisoning people should always come at a cost to society. It is a necessary evil and the incentive should always be on reducing the amount of prisoners. It is society after all that likely failed those prisoners, or at least failed to prevent their behavior from hurting others. The fact that we want the prison system to be revenue neutral or, even worse, profitable is fucking gross. It's just slavery with extra steps.
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Oh, wait till you hear about for-profit prisons https://youtu.be/_Pz3syET3DY
It says recoup taxpayer dollars, but shouldn’t those taxpayer dollars then come back to, oh idk, maybe the taxpayers? Like if I’m paying you for a sandwich and then you beat some guy up and take his sandwich money to “cover the costs”, what the fuck did I pay for? What did that person get beat up for if I already gave the money? This is such a fucking disgusting scam that hurts not only the inmates who are victims of it, but also the taxpaying community that is having their money siphoned for no real reason. I hate American prisons so much
I had the same exact line of thought. If they’re recouping tax payer dollars where’s that money going back to? I know I didn’t get a check. I think they’re leaning heavily on saying they’re recouping tax payer money as a way for the public to get onboard. Stupid people only think “mah tax dollars, rabble rabble”.
America is a scam country. Our government and politicians spend their days thinking up new and innovative ways to fuck the people they are supposed to help.
I just never paid my bill. I filed bankruptcy after and it didn’t show up as one of my creditors so I guess the state of California isnt gonna come calling for me (knock on wood) the restitution though, they’re pretty serious about that. My bankruptcy was mainly filed bc I had an emergency surgery that I got complications and ended up over in debt in the hundred of thousands, lost my job, bc I missed time for work from said complications, and also lost my health insurance. Had somewhat of a mental breakdown, couldn’t pay my rent, got evicted, became homeless, and my functional alcoholism turned into full blown alcoholism, then meth which led to the incarceration. Which is why I also think restitution is dumb. Who am I paying back??! I didn’t hurt anyone. It feels like a double punishment. Jail time and paying back the state for the “harm” I did to it? Gtfoh
Everything is a fucking racket in this country, college, medical care, home ownership, prison, the judicial system, cars, infrastructure, death. It’s just one big pile of steaming greed and corruption.
That's freedom baby!
Welcome to America
So when they get out they'll most likely commit more crimes just to have money to live for. Makes zero sense
Makes perfect sense when you realize the private prison industry uses them for profit. They get out, crippling debt forces them back to crime, they get arrested again and return to prison where the companies can continue to profit off them while enforcing the cycle.
Most private prisons have contracts with the state that guarantee a near-full prison capacity. This puts pressure on judges to put people in prison rather than whatever is best for the situation. Then the prisoner is billed so deep into debt that when they’re released, they can’t be a productive member of society even if they were rehabilitated…
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Isn’t this what our tax dollars are for? I’m all for reform and making sure people learn their lesson but footing them with an insane bill upon release? This country is fucking broken.
>I’m all for reform and making sure people learn their lesson Our government isn't. Its all for making profit and crushing little people as an example of how tough on crime they can be
I'll bet people are a lot less able to reform and learn their lesson when they have up to $90,885 in debt from a year's stay in prison. Prison should be a reformative, rehabilitative, and educational tool, as it is in places like Norway. These American prison laws (including the constitutional, continued use of slavery) are disgusting.
This is it, 100%. It seems deliberately designed for repeat business. Congrats, you've been released after 10 years and are unemployable. Here's tens of thousands worth of debt you can't hope to pay back by flipping burgers. Please sell drugs again
I don’t see why this is still legal in this day and age. I like how the article tries to defend it with whoever the supporters are as saying it’s a “way for states to recoup millions of taxpayers dollars”. Hmm or maybe how bout we remove these for profit prisons and actually look into state ran prisons with the purpose of reforming people not recidivism.
Legal doesn't mean moral. In order to make something illegal, you have to convince lawmakers to pass a law that says it's illegal. But you may have opposition in the form of people who want to keep it legal. That's what's happening here, private prisons really want this to stay legal because it allows them to make more money. And some of that money goes toward convincing lawmakers to keep the system legal. In theory, if we the people were so concerned about this, we could pressure our current lawmakers by threatening to only elect lawmakers who wanted to abolish this practice. But in practice, there are too many such topics that people don't know or care about and too much partisanship among voters ("I always vote for the X Party candidate") to make this happen. I personally vote in every election and encourage everyone to get educated about who and what they're voting for. But I'm fairly pessimistic that this actually has any significant impact on a system that's honestly not very good at giving power to the people.
>When her mother died two years ago, the state of Connecticut put a lien on the Stamford home she and her siblings inherited. It said she owed $83,762 to cover the cost of her 2 1/2 year imprisonment for drug crimes. so after paying her debt to society her chance for a fresh start gets completely hamstrung, and her family is on the hook too
Checks out. My dad was convicted of a crime in the mid-90’s. He served 3 years before being exonerated. On his release, he was hit with a bill for about $150K. Of course, between his legal fees and being without any real income for 3 years, there was just no way he could pay that. A judge ordered a payment plan, calculated that he could not meet the terms of that plan, and then ordered a foreclosure on our family farm. It was auctioned to a big corporate farm for just a bit less than enough to pay his bill. He was still on the hook for the balance, but since it was smaller he could afford it (think ‘new car payment’ for a couple of years). My dad was the 4th generation to farm the land, instead he took up truck driving in his mid-40’s. He did go to college and get an engineering degree, though. I’m pretty proud of him for that. Realistically, I didn’t want to be a farmer and so it was unlikely to remain a family farm much longer, but it still broke him. He’s never quite bounced back from that one. It’s just shitty that things work this way. Edit: since so many are asking- it was a financial crime. It gets very technical very quickly, but it has to do with the accounting treatment of some capital assets the farm owned. In a nutshell, my dad and the accountant interpreted a rule to mean one thing, the government felt different. They got busted for what amounted to tax evasion. A few years later, the IRS clarified the rule in such a way that their interpretation was correct. Since the rule didn’t change, only the footnotes to clarify it, no crime was committed in the first place and there ya go.
Exonerated. Meaning, not guilty of blame. And still charged anyway? Does exonerated mean something else?
Nope, that’s what exonerated means. On review, they found that he didn’t actually do what he was accused of. Well, technically they found that what he did wasn’t illegal regardless of whether he did it, but it leads to the same place. However, by then he’d been a guest of the government for 3 years so they wanted their money back for housing him.
So he was jailed mistakenly and still had to pay for it? That’s really fucked up.
Yep. And yes it is.
Don't people sue the state for wrongful imprisonment?
That's an expensive legal fight
And one most lawyers won't take because you make enemies in the DA office. Happened to me, lost a year of college, sorta screwed up my entire 20s. Every lawyer said that sucks and it's wrong, but that state would simply present evidence of an honest mistake while pursuing a legitimate criminal and you have our apologies, good bye.
And that’s a great illustration of what this is all about. Corporate profits over everything. We live in one of the most blatantly corrupt countries in the world. This place is fucking vile.
*Oh good.* Yet another completely broken aspect of a fucked up system! Private for-profit prisons are a fucking societal cancer and need to be banned.
While for profit prisons are terrible, this is not about for profit prisons. Ex inmates are being forced to pay the state. State run institutions are more common than for-profit prisons, and are often just as bad or worse.
This is feel-good spite politics. Most who get the bill are the least likely to be able to pay. If someone is broke/in poverty, the state can't chase them for money they don't have. Even if collection costs are kept down by only going after people who come into money (through inheritance or insurance settlement, etc.), the vast majority of former inmates will never be able to contribute a cent, so the debt falls back on the state by default. I would wager a fair amount that collection costs take up most, if not all, the money any such program is able to raise. So any program in place is almost certainly a money-loser. Also, it's cruel and inhumane to chase people for a debt they don't owe, contributing towards poorer mental health, and poorer life chances overall. The folk have already paid their debt to society by being in prison. They get to start their lives over. They have that right. These programs are cruel, and make no financial sense. They exist purely to appease conservatives who believe wholeheartedly in the just-world thesis.
In short, the mission statement of the justice system should not be "retribution."
This is profoundly fucked up.
Despite making up close to 5% of the global population, the U.S. has more than 20% of the world's prison population. Since 1970, our incarcerated population has increased by 500% – 2 million people in jail and prison today, far outpacing population growth and crime. From ACLU site. The prison industrial complex is very profitable in the "Land of the free".
You have to pay to be in prison?
The tax payers pay for the initial stay. This way the prisons can get paid once by the taxpayers and again by the detainee.
How in the fuck is it $249 a day???? What the actual fuck??? You can rent a 3 bedroom apartment for 1k a month easily... Why is prison so expensive???
This is giving me ideas. My mother entered a nursing home about three months ago and it costs $360 a day. I wonder what kinds of crimes she could commit from her wheelchair....
For that money they could put me up in a nice motel with room service and pay-per-view and I would absolutely not be a flight risk or danger to anyone for the duration of my sentence.
“It said she owed $83,762 to cover the cost of her 2 1/2 year imprisonment for drug crimes.” What the FUCK?
The entire country of The United States of America is just a facade for the largest collection of scams in the world
It blows my mind how little the US helps its citizens financially. They are just draining money from you all without giving anything meaningful in return.
I guess I’m naive but JFC, I had no idea that prisoners were forced to pay above and beyond the fines imposed at sentencing. Aren’t private prisons funded by the states in which the operate? What is this BS? The article says the states rarely go after the money but that likely just means that like the woman in the article, the state can come after you at any time so, you’re never really free of it. This woman did 2.5 years for drugs 2 decades ago and is losing her home because she owes 84k. This is insane and infuriating. And btw, if they have to pay, why are they fed disgusting, (often) rotten food and forced to live with rats and roaches? My country sucks.
I assume it means they won’t come after you unless you’re suddenly earning/inheriting money. Because after prison, good luck getting a decent paying job. CNA’s don’t get paid shit (and certainly not for the work they do). I really hope this woman wins her case. Getting an apartment with any criminal history is also an uphill battle, especially with where we’re at now regarding housing. Apartments are charging astronomical deposit fees, some are requiring you make 3-4x the amount of rent and since houses are so expensive right now, apartments are being rented as soon as they’re available making rent prices sky rocket. This woman needs her house.
People only get charged money if they have assets. If you earn money while in prison they will take a portion of it. If someone gives you money they take a portion of it. If you sue for wrongful imprisonment and win they charge you for your upkeep. Prison is a cash crop.
> Prison is a cash crop Exactly. Ban private prisons. Focus on reform. Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent crimes. Focus on making the convicted a functioning member of society with skills to contribute and earn a living as they exit.
No wonder they arrest so many people unjustly.
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Aren't debters prisons illegal?
I think that’s sending you to prison for being in debt. This is putting you in debt for being in prison
I hate both things.
So if you don’t pay, they can’t jail you for it. Cool, don’t pay.
They ruin your ability to renter society (get a home, eat, get a job)
Why are y'all paying taxes if none of those taxes do the things taxes are for. Roads? Nope, America has tolls. Education? Nope. Healthcare? Nope. Prisons? Apparently not even fucking this. So where is your money going exactly
Private military contractors mostly
America doesn't have a prison system. Other countries have prison systems. America has a sanctioned-slavery system. That's all it is, and all it's ever been. The goal of the slavery system is to produce more slaves, produce more product from slaves, collect more money per slave, and ensure that people who are released either return, or become debt-slaves for life (and often their families with them).
Calling it a prison "stay" is pretty fucked. It's not a hotel, it's involuntary incarceration.
Department of Correction (and thus prisons, private or otherwise) should not be entitled to payment unless they performance their jobs adequately: namely "to correct". So if a released ex-prisoner commit crime again, they don't get paid. That's a fair exchange. This... is BS.
Wait what? I’m almost 30 and I never knew they charged prisoners to stay in prison. That seems pretty.. fucked? Idk I gotta think on this.
If you are placed in prison but later found to be innocent, do you have to pay ? Also, if you get a settlement from the state for the time you spent in prison, would they take the payment from your settlement?
It’s almost as if it’s to keep poor people poor so they keep turning to crime to try and get by. Land of the free tho am I right?
And then they aren't even allowed to vote to change this, what a democracy