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

blazera ,
@blazera@lemmy.world avatar

Shouldve shopped around for a prison within your means

jordanlund ,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

It's actually worse than that... I went looking for a list, I found this:

https://www.vox.com/2015/5/26/8660001/prison-jail-cost

"Forty-three states allow inmates to get charged for "room and board" — the cost of their own imprisonment. Thirty-five states charge inmates for at least some medical expenses. Taken together, at least 49 states have a law on the books that authorizes at least one of the two. (Hawaii, as well as DC, doesn't have statutes that explicitly address pay-to-stay.)"

JimmyBigSausage ,

Privatized prisons are an abomination.

Potatisen ,

The US is in free fall. Kinda crazy to see how passive the people are there.

Varyk OP ,

Americans are protesting and many are getting physically assaulted and arrested for protests everyday, and there are many civil rights and labor rights groups constantly bringing lawsuits against the government, actively changing policy.

Anticorp ,

Unfortunately the government has been very busy snatching up essential liberties and writing bullshit laws, and it's almost impossible to keep up with the protests and lawsuits. The politicians get paid to be there, and can spend all of their time on legislation. Once they pass something, boom, it's in effect. Then it costs organizations and citizens tons of time and money to protest and appeal what was so easily done by the legislators.

Varyk OP ,

Fortunately, there are a lot of people who don't give up because stuff gets hard.

Anticorp ,

True, but we're losing ground.

Varyk OP ,

And gaining ground in other areas.

It's the long and arduous process of fighting for and maintaining civil rights, nobody is going to snap their fingers and make everything better.

Sir_Kevin ,
@Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

So many people get a hard-on about the 2nd Amendment but they're all too spineless to invoke it.

Mango ,

What can I do?

200ok ,

rationales justifying these fees routinely do not recognize them as a form of punishment and instead policymakers see pay-to-stay as financial reimbursement to the state by portraying incarcerated people as using up system resources. The justification allows pay-to-stay statutes to survive legal arguments alleging double punishment.

phoneymouse ,

Just to really fuck up your life when you get out

Ephera ,

In particular, to force you back into crime, to be able to pay for that debt.

metaStatic ,

just declare bankruptcy

aodhsishaj ,

Absolutely, I mean I'm already a felon, what's one more barrier to credit and gainful employment?

Trollception ,

Bankruptcy isn't a bad option if you don't have any credit or have bad credit already. You can turn things around in a couple of months. Also I am unaware of employers performing a credit check as a basis for employment.

poprocks ,

Depends on the company. Background checks can include credit checks. Any job with money or security clearance will check credit and large employers sometimes do as well.

Emma_Gold_Man ,

Common in IT roles as well.

Codilingus ,

Blows my mind, credit has nothing to do with IT skills?!

Emma_Gold_Man ,

IT has a level of access to systems that makes management nervous. The fear is that an IT person in financial trouble could use that to embezzle, or be pressured to sell access to a malicious third party.

olav ,
@olav@theweird.space avatar

@Trollception @aodhsishaj they do if there's a gov't clearance or you're touching corp money involved. But in most cases they'll let you explain what happened.

aodhsishaj ,

You've chosen your username well.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/credit-score-employer-checking

Felonies also don't help with getting a job.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2022/02/08/employment/

Bankruptcy, without a lawyer is not just a couple months.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-score/bankruptcy-on-credit-report/

Also another place where credit can affect your chances is housing
https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/credit-score-needed-to-rent-apartment?op=1

And when it's that bad you can just move into a relatives house right?
https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11290&context=ilj

acockworkorange ,

Wait, are you unironically advocating for people not to declare bankruptcy after leaving prison with crippling debt?

aodhsishaj ,

I'm saying it shouldn't be necessary in the first place. You're supposed to have paid your debt to society by being in there. Federal amd state tax money pay for you to be there, charging room and board is predatory.

Just declare bankruptcy bro! Is a very tone deaf response to what is essentially bonded labor.

acockworkorange ,

I'm saying it shouldn't be necessary in the first place.

Well no shit. Nobody’s defending this. Dude’s proposing something to help while legislation is in this shit state.

Just declare bankruptcy bro! Is a very tone deaf response to what is essentially bonded labor.

You need to get out of your own head if you think that was a response. No one’s out to get you.

Trainguyrom ,

I interned at a bank and they do a credit check as a standard step for hiring someone. I also overheard HR at that bank talking about how they should stop running credit checks before hiring people because they can't use the info from that for anything and it just costs money to run the credit check

olav ,
@olav@theweird.space avatar

@aodhsishaj @metaStatic bankruptcy is by far not the worse thing you can do. Often trying to unbury yourself will take longer to get back to solvency.

We had to medical B out. Get cancer these days, particularly with a $6K+ deductible for a PPO and you're toast. We managed to switch to a HMO before surgery and we were still toast. And I had a Good Job.

File, get a pre-paid card then some high-interest you barely use, then some "normal" credit and it builds faster than you know

olav ,
@olav@theweird.space avatar

@aodhsishaj @metaStatic

If you think bankruptcy is bad, look at all the rich people and corps that do it as often as possible

Edit: I mean Herr Trumptard has filed no less than six times to avoid paying people

ICastFist ,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

Rich people never pay what they owe, especially if they owe it to the gov't. Unlike poor people, the police doesn't knock on their door to get the money.

Daft_ish ,

This golden oldie, "all hail the job creators, creators of all jobs."

jkrtn ,

Did Donald file for personal bankruptcy or did a Donald business file for bankruptcy? It might be like stealing: legal and cool if you are a corporation and the victims are poors.

Audacious ,

Corporations have more rights than the people, and rich people hide behind their companies. So, without looking it up, I'm guessing trump business.

aodhsishaj ,

Bankruptcy without a lawyer, a permanent address and transportation to the courts is a serious hurdle. People rotating out of prison are already at a disadvantage. My point is they shouldn't be in debt when they leave prison in the first place. The whole point is that they paid their debt to society.

This isn't, oh shit I'm in over my head in a cornerstore, restaurant, family warehouse, what have you. It's very tone-deaf to not address the elephant in the room of these people entering society at a grave disadvantage.

The services below should not be necessary for every person incarcerated by the state. The system is broken.

https://legalbeagle.com/5666136-file-bankruptcy-prison.html

https://library.nclc.org/article/bankruptcys-role-alleviating-criminal-justice-debt-0

HawlSera ,

Debtor's Prison is illegal... happens anyway

b3an ,
@b3an@lemmy.world avatar

So felons can do that, but students can’t with crushing loans. Cool

metaStatic ,

cool and normal

Sir_Kevin ,
@Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I wish i knew why you were being downvoted but nobody offered a counter point. Bankrupcy seems like a logical solution for this situation.

metaStatic ,

I hope kbin never federates downvotes because I couldn't care less

but it's probably people who got scammed with student loans they can't discharge with bankruptcy.

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

great solution

sebinspace ,

The system is working as intended

can ,

The US is starting to sound made up

aeronmelon ,

I left America over a decade ago due to a laundry list of grievances that I developed while having only ever lived in America.

Once I started living in other countries, I finally developed context to compare my American life with. And it just made things look so much worse than I had previously thought.

And now it feels like not a day can go by without learning some new awful truth about my former home.

SaintWacko ,

Where did you go, if you don't mind me asking? It's certainly something we've talked about...

aeronmelon , (edited )

I hopped around Southeast Asia until I landed in Japan.

It's not easy here, and it's not without its own problems, but it works much better for me.

(I'd probably still be in Singapore were it not for the heat. The food is 10/10 and dirt cheap, but I missed seasons.)

(I knew that answering this question would make the jerks upset somehow.)

Codilingus ,

Do you have to struggle with the insane only work, no life, salary man/woman problems? Or did you find something that doesn't follow that "life style?"

aeronmelon ,

No, I see it but I don't have to deal with it.

It's also not as much of a constant as it used to be.

Lucidlethargy ,
@Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works avatar

It's unfortunate you left... When good people leave, we're stuck with more of the bad gaining power.

If we lose this country to the bad people even more than it's already been lost, then the entire world may pay dearly as a result.

nilloc ,

If he left a solid red or blue state, it doesn’t really matter. Our minority representation, first pst the pole voting and electoral college means that a lot of smart people from cities or solid blue areas can leave and nothing will change.

Plus OP’s an outlier, most of us can’t afford to relocate like this.

Varyk OP ,

It was. Everywhere was.

can ,

Yes, but the more I live and hear things about the states it starts to sound like satire or as if it's a joke to see what other people will believe.

Varyk OP ,

You're just getting older, haha. The longer we live, the more we can't help seeing what's right in front of us.

can ,

If only that were true for everyone.

Raffster ,

Nah, it's exactly the other way around. Except for a tiny minority. All the others have to ignore what's around them in order to not go insane.

Varyk OP ,

I can understand why it seems that way, but the broad American public supports civil and labor liberties, green energy, healthy and equitable policies in general; it's the vocal minority that is subverting the will of the more fair-minded, rational and compassionate majority(sure would be nice if more than one out of every three or four people voted).

And I don't even think most conservatives believe in the policies they support so much as they don't comprehend what they're supporting and they are afraid of relinquishing control over what they narrowly perceive as "power" and "freedom".

The ones I've talked to don't.

Codilingus ,

I feel like most of them only vote R because they're getting bamboozled into believing that the Rs stand for conservative, Christian, family values.

Varyk OP , (edited )

Anecdotally, ignorance and fear seems to be significant factors supporting conservative beliefs.

When I tell a liberal something that they aren't expecting or that they didn't know, they'll respond with "what? How do you know that? Really?"

Then with a conservative, I usually get "No, no. Really? Well, I don't know about that, anyway..."

And that'll be some hard truth or contradicting statistic that the conservative doesn't want to address or learn about because it will fly in the face of a fear or ignorance based belief.

can ,

This is probably not the point you intended, but I basically read that as Conservatives are against growth, personal or otherwise.

Which is just sad. That sounds like an unrewarding life. I doubt they want my pity but they kind of already have it when I look past the hatred and think about how they've been swindled.

Varyk OP ,

Yep, that's a part of what I meant.

FlashMobOfOne ,
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world avatar

I'd like to believe that. Social Media did a great job of reprogramming people.

Varyk OP ,

Media did a great job before that, and humans tend to get conservative as they age, so I think there's a lot of factors working together to make people more cynical than they ought to be.

6mementomori ,

isn't every country made up after all?

can ,

But this has begun sounding like made up details, like someone heard how we feel and they decided to play into those concerns to see how much we'd believe before calling them out.

BruceTwarzen ,

I honeatly think that a lot.

gravitas_deficiency ,

It’s called the American Dream because you’ve got to be asleep to believe it

Mango ,

It's real and I'm here. Pls save me.

can ,

I'd love to invite you up north but we need to get some housing first.

Mango ,

We all have housing. It's just a matter of prying the leeches off first.

can ,

As long as the leeches are still there then we really don't.

Mango ,

Got any salt?

can ,

The finest.

Mango ,

WTB 1 salt. 5k /wave2 /glow:green

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