Chip Taylor

Pay to stay

in prison.

The New York Times reports that:

To help cover the costs of incarceration, corrections officers and politicians are more frequently billing inmates for their room and board, an idea popular with voters.

Here in suburban Macomb County, 25 miles north of Detroit, Sheriff Mark Hackel has one of the most successful of these programs in the nation. Last year, the sheriff's department collected nearly $1.5 million in what are being called "pay to stay" fees from many of the 22,000 people who spent time in the county jail.

Inmates are billed for room and board on a sliding scale of $8 to $56 a day, depending on ability to pay. When they are released, the sheriff's office will go to court to collect the unpaid bills, seizing cars or putting some inmates back in jail. The wife of one inmate, a Chrysler truck factory worker who is serving half a year for drunk driving, dropped off a check for $7,212 this week to cover part of his bill, the largest single amount ever collected by the sheriff.

I can think of three reasons why this is a bad idea. The first two are alluded to in the article. First, when people leave incarceration we hope they get a new start -- turn over a new leaf. That's hard enough under the best of circumstances, but this policy sends them back out into the world saddled with debt. They start out in the hole. Some have been re-jailed for failing to pay the jail debt.

Second, it costs their families. Already saddled with a parent in the clink, the spouse and kids have to do without to pay the jail fees. In this case we are punishing people who most likely aren't responsible for the fact that someone else is in jail.

Third, the states' budget problems over the last few years have forced them to confront the costs of three strikes laws, so-called truth in sentencing laws, and mandatory minimum sentences -- to weigh the costs against the benefits. In the case of play-to-stay, as with any other subsidy, if you make incarceration artifically cheap, you'll get more than the optimum amount.