TIL 40 states in the US charge you $20-$80 a day for being incarcerated in prison. ( en.m.wikipedia.org )

Very weird that I am so old and have literally never heard this mentioned in a TV show or book or movie or anything.

In four out of five states, if you go to prison, you are literally paying for the time you spend there.

As you can guess, this results in crippling debt as soon as you're released.

The county gets back a fraction of what they hold over your head the rest of your life until you commit suicide(or die naturally and peacefully with the sword of damocles hanging over your head).

$20-$80 a day according to Rutgers.

Counties apparently sue people and employ wage garnishment to get back the money that majority of people obviously cannot pay back.

https://www.rutgers.edu/news/states-unfairly-burdening-incarcerated-people-pay-stay-fees

nucleative ,

Might be somewhat acceptable if a job was available while in prison to support these living expenses. That at least might improve confidence and start the rehabilitation process.

Oh wait, who am I kidding. Prison has nothing to do with rehabilitation.

Varyk OP ,

Not in the states. US prisons are exploitative first and punitive second.

Traegert ,

There are, but the jobs available pay like $1 or 2 a day

luciferofastora ,

So glad slavery got abolished*!

*terms and conditions apply

Resol ,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

How to absolutely destroy your net worth:

Step 1: go to prison

There is no step 2.

JustZ ,
@JustZ@lemmy.world avatar

Back on my day prison was a nickle and we liked it.

elephantium ,
@elephantium@lemmy.world avatar

But the important thing was to tie an onion on your belt, as it was the style at the time.

InvaderDJ ,

The very idea is absurd. It is so counter productive to the idea of rehabilitation. The prisons themselves say they aren't a significant revenue stream. Trying to offset the cost of a societal need by charging fees to prisons doesn't even make any sense. And the companies that are tasked with collecting this debt get 70% of what they collect which means that even the argument about offsetting the state's cost doesn't make sense.

It's profit seeking, counter productive cruelty and that's it. Just shameful.

elephantium ,
@elephantium@lemmy.world avatar

Trying to offset the cost of a societal need by charging fees to prisons (sic) doesn’t even make any sense.

Sure it does. It costs $$$ to build jails and prisons and more $$$ to run them. Why should I, the victim, have to pay twice? (once for my car, which the thief stole, and again in my taxes to fund the legal system once the thief is caught)

I can very much entertain an argument like that (counter-argument, pay prisoners minimum wage for whatever work they do and charge the $20/day from that).

But that's not what's going on here.

This is about a collection agency figuring out how to profit from a captive audience. It deserves the same regard from us as prison phone operators do.

It's really just another form of predatory bullshit.

The prisons themselves say they aren’t a significant revenue stream

This is crucial here, IMO. We could put whatever we want on the bills -- hell, we could charge a million dollar fee for each sentence! That would fix the funding problems -- but the simple truth is that most of the prisoners don't have the money.

orrk ,

the overwhelming majority of inmates are non-violent offenders, often times in prison for the heinous crime of: smoking weed, or some other petty crime

elephantium ,
@elephantium@lemmy.world avatar

Okay? I don't understand what point you might be trying to make with this statement, even if it were true.

But the actual figure is 45% for drug offenses. That is the single biggest category, but I find it disingenuous to characterize "less than half" as "overwhelming majority".

orrk ,

so, here is the fun bit about statistics, when you have more than say, 3-4 different options the thing with almost half generally is an overwhelming majority

elephantium ,
@elephantium@lemmy.world avatar

No, it's incredibly misleading. When you said that, I expected to find something like 80% of prisoners are there because of drugs. Instead, I find that it's less than half.

orrk ,

it's not misleading at all? half is a REALLY large amount. like i get that this is an issue of humans not having math brains, but imagine if you will:

a bag with 20 marbles, 10 blue, 3yellow, 2red, 2pink, 1green, 1black, and 1 clear.

Bjornir ,

If the issue was cost, you would build schools. A better educated population get less sick, earns more and thus pays more taxes, commit way less crimes, get less social welfare, in short it is a net gain in tax dollars.

Plus, someone who gets out of jail with a big debt will very likely cost way more to society than what could ever be recovered from them.

elephantium ,
@elephantium@lemmy.world avatar

I read the wiki page. Pretty barebones, but it did link to https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34705968

In theory, I could entertain an argument about having criminals repay some of the costs of dealing with them, that's not what's going on here.

The sum that is able to be collected doesn't go straight into the county coffers, either - the jail contracts with a company

The jail gets 30%, the company gets 70%.

It really just looks like just another way to exploit prisoners for profit.

Varyk OP ,

Yeah, that's what the Rutgers article at the bottom of my post was for, more context.

There is no doubt that the prisons are using pay for stay as an excuse to hoover up more money from the most vulnerable populations.

halferect ,

Believe it or not if you can't pay.. straight to jail

Varyk OP ,

And then if you can't pay after you get out, they'll sue you. I can't find evidence that you'll go back to jail, but I'm sure it's happened.

halferect ,

https://youtu.be/eiyfwZVAzGw?si=7ziuV57fXMCOwfz8

unreasonabro ,

it's sad and conspicuous that all of the reasons you hear about these days that would actually justify going out and killing terrible people mostly all involve things the American government has done or permitted. Truly the driving force for evil in the world.

Varyk OP ,

They're barely a 200-year-old country; relevant for roughly 80 of those years, the states are not the ultimate driving force of anything, and certainly not a vague concept like evil.

This specific issue is a failing on part of its citizenry, in company of many failings, but the country is not a static moment in time defined by its failings.

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