Charging Inmates Perpetuates
Mass Incarceration
By Lauren-Brooke Eisen

Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law

ABOUT THE BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that
seeks to improve our systems of democracy and justice. We work to hold our political institutions and
laws accountable to the twin American ideals of democracy and equal justice for all. The Center’s work
ranges from voting rights to campaign finance reform, from ending mass incarceration to preserving
Constitutional protection in the fight against terrorism. Part think tank, part advocacy group, part cuttingedge communications hub, we start with rigorous research. We craft innovative policies. And we fight for
them — in Congress and the states, the courts, and in the court of public opinion.

ABOUT THE BRENNAN CENTER’S JUSTICE PROGRAM
The Brennan Center’s Justice Program seeks to secure our nation’s promise of “equal justice for all” by
creating a rational, effective, and fair justice system. Its priority focus is to reform the criminal justice
system so that it better reduces crime and reduces mass incarceration. The program uses economics to
produce new empirical analysis and innovative policy solutions to advance this critical goal. It also works
to ensure a fair civil legal system.

ABOUT THE BRENNAN CENTER’S PUBLICATIONS
Red cover | Research reports offer in-depth empirical findings.
Blue cover | Policy proposals offer innovative, concrete reform solutions.
White cover | White papers offer a compelling analysis of a pressing legal or policy issue.

© 2015. This paper is covered by the Creative Commons “Attribution-No Derivs-NonCommercial” license (see
http://creativecommons.org). It may be reproduced in its entirety as long as the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School
of Law is credited, a link to the Center’s web pages is provided, and no charge is imposed. The paper may not be reproduced
in part or in altered form, or if a fee is charged, without the Center’s permission. Please let the Center know if you reprint.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lauren-Brooke Eisen is counsel in the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Previously,
she was a Senior Program Associate at the Vera Institute of Justice in the Center on Sentencing and
Corrections. Ms. Eisen also served as an Assistant District Attorney in New York City in the Sex Crime
and Special Victims Bureau, Criminal Court Bureau, and Appeals Bureau where she prosecuted a wide
variety of criminal cases. She has worked as a journalist in Laredo, Texas covering crime and justice. She
is currently an adjunct instructor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and previously developed
and taught a seminar on mass incarceration at Yale College. She holds an A.B. from Princeton University
and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Brennan Center gratefully acknowledges Laura and John Arnold, Democracy Alliance Partners, Ford
Foundation, The New York Bar Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Public Welfare Foundation,
Rockefeller Family Fund, Vital Projects Fund, and William B. Wiener, Jr. Foundation for their support
of the Justice Program. The opinions and views expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect
those of the aforementioned individuals or groups.
The author is grateful to Inimai Chettiar, Jessica Eaglin, Alicia Bannon, Johanna Kalb, Abigail
Finkelman, Nicole Fortier, Julia Bowling, Adam Klock, and Rachel Shapiro, for their guidance of this
project. She especially thanks John Kowal for his editing, input and invaluable feedback on drafts of
this report. She also thanks Jeanine Plant-Chirlin, Desiree Ramos Reiner, Jim Lyons, Naren Daniel,
Lena Glaser, and Mikayla Terrell for their editing and communications assistance.

This report is adapted from a law review article that appeared in The Loyola University New Orleans
Journal of Public Interest Law.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction	

1

How Current Practices of Charging Inmates Perpetuates Mass Incarceration 	

2

History of Inmate Fees	

3

Today’s Landscape 	

3

Are Inmate Fees Bad Policy? 	

4

I.	

Constitutional Infirmity 	

6

II.	

Policy Recommendations 	

8

Conclusion 	

9

Endnotes	 	

10

INTRODUCTION
The American criminal justice system is replete with fees that attempt to shift costs from the government to
those accused and convicted of breaking the law. Courts impose monetary sanctions on a “substantial
majority of the millions of U.S. residents convicted of felony and misdemeanor crimes each year.”1 Every
aspect of the criminal justice process has become ripe for charging a fee. In fact, an estimated 10 million
people owe more than $50 billion in debt resulting from their involvement in the criminal justice system.2 In
the last few decades, additional fees have proliferated, such as charges for police transport, case filing, felony
surcharges, electronic monitoring, drug testing, and sex offender registration. Unlike fines, whose purpose is
to punish, and restitution, which is intended to compensate victims of crimes for their loss, user fees are
intended to raise revenue.3 The Justice Department’s March 2015 report on practices in Ferguson, Mo.
highlights the overreliance on court fines as a primary source of revenue for the jurisdiction.4 The New York
Times noted that the report found that “internal emails show city officials pushing for more tickets and
fines.”5
Fees and debts are increasing partially because the criminal justice system has grown bigger. With 2.2 million
people behind bars, courts — and all the relevant agencies — have expanded as well. Since the 1970s,
incarceration in the U.S. has risen steeply, dwarfing the incarceration rate of any other nation on Earth. The
U.S. added about 1.1 million incarcerated people, almost doubling the nation’s incarcerated population, in the
past 20 years. The fiscal costs of corrections are high — more than $80 billion annually — about equivalent
to the budget of the federal Department of Education.6 A recent report by the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities finds that corrections is currently the third-largest category of spending in most states, behind
education and health care.7 In fact, somewhat disconcertingly, 11 states spent more of their general funds on
corrections than on higher education in 2013.8
Fees already on the books have increased.9 And, these fees are extending into state and local corrections.
As a result of these runaway costs, counties and states continue to struggle with ways to increase revenue to
pay for exorbitant incarceration bills. In 2010, the mean annual state corrections expenditure per inmate was
$28,323, although a quarter of states spent $40,175 or more.10 Not surprisingly, departments of corrections
and jails are increasingly authorized to charge inmates for the cost of their imprisonment. Although this
policy is alarming, less widely understood but equally troubling is the reality that these incarceration fees
perpetuate our nation’s addiction to incarceration. This policy brief exposes how the widespread nature of
charging fees to those who are incarcerated connects to the larger problem of mass incarceration in this
country.

CHARGING INMATES PERPETUATES MASS INCARCERATION | 1

	
  
	
  
	
  

HOW CURRENT PRACTICES OF CHARGING INMATES PERPETUATES MASS INCARCERATION
Almost 7 million people, or 1 in 35 adults, were under the supervision of adult correctional systems at the end
of 2013.11 This means that 1 in 35 adults were in prison or jail, or on probation or parole supervision in the
community. Compared to just over 4.3 million people under some form of correctional control in 1990,12
those caught in the maze of our rapidly growing justice system have increased by 58.6 percent in the last three
decades.
Mass incarceration was a distinct response by policymakers to both the social turmoil of the 1960s — a
troubling era for many Americans because of protests, riots, and acts of civil disobedience related to both the
civil rights movement and the Vietnam War — and the increasing crime rate of the 1970s and 1980s. Specific
criminal justice policies that increased the number of people incarcerated include the expansion of mandatory
minimums, truth-in-sentencing, “three strikes you’re out” laws, the elimination of parole, and federal funding
for prison construction.
As budgets grew tighter and jurisdictions balked at increases in taxes, the burden to raise revenue for the
criminal justice system gradually shifted toward those who found themselves as defendants in court and
inmates in jails and prisons. The country’s criminal justice costs — mostly policing, jails, prisons, and courts
— rose from $35 billion in 1982 to more than $265 billion in 2012 — a growth of over 650 percent.13 With
this dramatic growth, those caught in this net are burdened with additional fees, many of which are charged
simply for being in the criminal justice system. Forty-three states and the District of Columbia allow fees to
be charged for using a public defender, and 44 states charge individuals for using probation services.14 As
more and more counties face strapped budgets, and in an attempt to save taxpayer dollars, private probation
companies have profited from requiring probationers to pay out of their own pockets for drug treatment,
electronic monitoring, and myriad other services they are required to participate in as a condition of their
supervision.15 Probation fees often run about $80 to $100 a month. Though many of these other charges are
small, they add up. Additional, more costly fees compound the problem. For example, a monthly electronic
monitoring system can cost as much as $300 a month. A defendant can emerge from the system owing
thousands of dollars in fees.
Some individuals are leaving jails and prisons with a mountain of debt, much of it stemming from the fees
they incurred behind bars, where a short telephone call home can cost as much as $20. These former inmates
can face aggressive collection tactics, including additional fines, driver’s license suspension, or, in some cases,
re-incarceration. Often, former inmates must depend on family members to pay the bills or are forced to
prioritize criminal justice debt over other pressing needs such as feeding, clothing, and housing family
members who are reliant on their income. Some of these fees are collected while an inmate is incarcerated
through deductions from the inmate’s bank or commissary account. In some situations, however, the fees are
collected through civil litigation aimed at a prisoner's assets or estate upon release. This debt can create a
barrier to successful reentry.

2| BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE

	
  
	
  

HISTORY OF INMATE FEES
Charging inmates fees is not new.
Michigan passed the first correctional fee law in 1846 when it authorized counties to charge inmates for the
cost of medical care.16 Today, at least 35 states authorize either state or correctional facilities to charge
inmates for medical fees such as co-pays or fees for procedures.
Booking fees have also increased in recent years. The Fayette County Jail in Kentucky recently raised booking
fees from $20 to $35 per inmate, a move intended to almost double revenues to the jail from booking fees to
$406,000.17 At least five other county jails in Kentucky charge booking fees between $10 and $70.
But fees for medical care and booking are just the beginning. What is perhaps most surprising are the “room
and board” fees that more than half the states permit. Known as “pay to stay,” the idea originated in the mid1990s as a solution to skyrocketing costs at correctional facilities partly due to overcrowded jails and
prisons.18 A newspaper article published in the Chicago Tribune by a law clerk for an Eighth Circuit judge in
1994 appears to be one of the earliest mentions of this new way of recouping funds from inmates for their
stay in prison. The author wrote, “We should, I believe, make prisoners pay rent. It's okay to laugh. The idea
strikes me as funny-mostly, I suppose, due to the assumption that prisoners on the whole probably can't
afford to pay rent.”19 The irony is obvious here: while advocating for this bold new idea, the author admits its
inherent unworkability.
Yet the unworkable idea became policy. Whether it was related to the Chicago Tribune article remains a
mystery, but by 2004, one survey found that approximately one-third of county jails and more than 50
percent of state correctional systems had instituted “pay-to-stay” fees, charging inmates for their own
incarceration.20

TODAY’S LANDSCAPE
Today, due to extreme overcrowding in some jails, there are a handful of states that offer inmates the chance
to pay to serve their time at a facility that is more akin to a hotel than a county jail. Some who are convicted
of certain nonviolent, misdemeanor crimes and sentenced to jail in Burbank, California can serve their time in
a city jail instead of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department jail. This “upgrade” to a relatively small,
new, clean and local jail is available for $100 per day.21 California is home to numerous facilities such as the
one in Burbank. A facility in Orange County charges $82 a day22 and the Fremont Police Detention Facility's
Pay-to-Stay program charges $155 daily.23 A sergeant at the Seal Beach Detention Center in California
recently stated, “We cater to good people who make bad choices.”24
There has been no comprehensive study in the last decade examining jail and prison fees. The most current
information appears to come from a 2005 National Institute of Justice (NIJ) national survey of 224 jails. The
survey indicated that at that time, 90 percent of responding jails charged inmates some sort of fee. Today,
these fees range from $1.25 for meals in Maricopa, Ariz., to the $68.76 per day charged by the Corrections
Center of Northwest Ohio. At that rate, it will cost an inmate more than $25,000 per year to stay in jail. This
disturbing trend increasingly forces inmates to pay for basic services, including meals, toilet paper, clothing,
dental fees, medical co-payments, telephone fees, video visitation fees, and Internet fees.
CHARGING INMATES PERPETUATES MASS INCARCERATION | 3

	
  
	
  
	
  

The Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio states on its website that their policy is to “assess a reception fee
and a Pay-for-Stay fee to convicted persons to offset the costs associated with the housing of that person.
The Corrections Commission of Northwest Ohio recognizes the importance of offender accountability, the
cost of incarceration and its increasing tax burden on the citizens of Northwest Ohio.”25 Its website even
provides a phone number for their pay-to-stay coordinator, and also explains that they have contracted with
Intellitech Corporation for collection services and inmates will receive a bill upon release from the collections
company.
The Brennan Center analyzed state statutes from all 50 states and found that as of 2015, at least 43 states
authorize room and board fees and at least 35 states authorize medical fees to be charged to inmates in either
state or county correctional facilities.

ARE INMATE FEES BAD POLICY?
Fee opponents have long maintained that charging inmates is simply bad policy. Perhaps most compelling,
some argue that the community as a whole has chosen to remove these individuals from society. Therefore,
society should be prepared to pay the costs of feeding, housing, and providing medical attention for inmates.
As a collective decision, society should bear the collective cost.26 Incarcerated individuals are deprived of their
liberty by the state, therefore it is unjust to punish them again by charging them for a multitude of services, let
alone their stay. The logic flows around the idea that inmates are “involuntary consumers” and “correctional
clients are not permitted to forego the services, consume less of them, or obtain them elsewhere.”27
Another compelling reason not to charge inmates is the burden on families. Experts estimate that at least 80
percent of individuals in jail are indigent.28 And, in most cases, the inmates’ families pay these fees, a reality
that makes it difficult for families already suffering from the loss of income from an incarcerated family
member.
And, when it comes to medical fees charged to inmates, they can serve as a deterrent to seeking proper
medical care. An article in the National Prison Project Journal noted, “Often prisoners will do without
hygiene items or medical treatment rather than have their families deposit funds that will be immediately
confiscated to satisfy prison charges.”29 The chilling effect of this policy deters inmates from seeking medical
attention with detrimental and expensive results. In 2011–2012, half of state and federal prisoners and local
jail inmates reported ever having a chronic medical condition.30 Communicable diseases spread easily behind
bars: Inmates are continuously being detained and released into the community, and inmates live in close
quarters with one another, oftentimes double and triple bunked in a small cell. The spread of communicable
diseases in jail and prison affects not only inmates, but also correctional officers, maintenance personnel,
volunteers, medical personnel, and family and friends who visit the facilities.
And in an exercise in futility, this debt is often never collected. As the ACLU of Ohio has reported,
“collection agencies often promise that they will bring in large revenues for local officials, but data suggests
that low-income people are no more likely to pay their fees when collection agencies are used.”31 In Fairfield
County, Ohio, for example, the jail abandoned using collection agencies in 2012, after nine years of using
them. They concluded that collection agencies were so ineffective in collecting fees owed that it wasn’t worth
the cost.

4| BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE

	
  
	
  

There are also reports of harsh practices to force the formerly incarcerated to pay the facilities. For example,
in Oklahoma and Texas, if an inmate successfully sues the jail and collects monetary damages, any fees owed
are taken from the reward. And, a handful of states authorize correctional facilities to collect from inmates’
future earnings.
Despite these issues, lawmakers and taxpayers applaud fee charges. There are two leading arguments in
support of laws permitting inmate fees. The most often cited rationale for charging these fees is to offset
burgeoning incarceration budgets. But the simple reality is that imposing fees has had mixed results, at best.
Some counties have found that administrative costs are greater than what they have collected from jail fees.32
Some agencies report actual revenues from their fee-based operations are as low as 6 percent of the fees
assessed.33 Other programs, like one in Olmsted County, Minn., have outright failed. The Minnesota program
was revamped because administrative costs surpassed revenue. A number of agencies have noted their lack of
staff capacity to effectively monitor and collect fees.34
The second most commonly touted justification for charging inmates fees is based on the theory that forcing
inmates to pay for their own incarceration “teaches them a lesson.” Some policy makers and correctional
officials make the argument that charging inmates for their stay is grounded in rehabilitation or deterrence.
Recently, Utah State Representative Paul Ray (R) objected to a judge’s ruling that the Davis County Jail is not
legally entitled to take money from inmates’ commissary accounts under the jail’s “pay-to-stay” policy. Ray
justified the practice by stating, “They’re giving them money to buy treats with, to buy commissaries, all these
extras in the jail, and the county is saying, ‘No, wait a minute. You have a debt to society that you’re gonna
pay before you buy those Twinkies.’”35 And Sheriff Jim Pitts in Elko County, Nev., recently commented
about his jail’s plan to require inmates to pay a $6 daily fee for food, $10 for each doctor’s visit and $5 for
booking by stating, “We’re not the Hilton.”36

CHARGING INMATES PERPETUATES MASS INCARCERATION | 5

	
  
	
  
	
  

I. CONSTITUTIONAL INFIRMITY
The debate around charging fees to inmates while they serve their sentences has also played out in the courts.
For decades, inmates have brought an assortment of constitutional challenges to a variety of fees. These
include: health care fees, booking fees, room-and-board fees, and charges incurred while inmates are held pretrial. And for decades, state and federal courts have largely upheld these fees, finding no constitutional
violations.
Inmates have raised both due process and equal protection arguments. Many have also argued these practices
violate the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment. In almost all cases, courts have
sided with the agencies implementing these practices.
But advocates opposing these fees have overlooked a significant doctrinal opening to conduct challenges
under the U.S. Constitution. Litigation centered on the Eighth Amendment’s excessive fines clause offers a
unique opportunity to argue that charging inmates fees while incarcerated is unconstitutional. The distinction
between “fees” and “fines” is a fuzzy one for inmates. It is important to think about the reasoning behind
some of these charges in order to challenge them as unconstitutional.
The Eighth Amendment provides “[e]xcessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor
cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”37 Scant case law exists on the excessive fines clause. To the extent
that the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the clause, it has done so over the last two decades primarily in
civil and criminal forfeiture cases.
In recent case law reviewing forfeiture cases, courts have held that a punitive forfeiture violates the excessive
fines clause “if it is grossly disproportional to the gravity of the offense that it is designed to punish.”38 As
Eighth Amendment jurisprudence examining fees under the excessive fines clause has similarly developed to
emphasize the principle of proportionality, this provides an innovative doctrinal opening for litigation on
inmates’ fees when they significantly exceed the legally permissible statutory fine for an inmates’ crime.
A seminal case, Tillman v. Lebanon County Correctional Facility, opened the door for an argument that inmate fees
could violate the excessive fines clause when their amount may be considered punitive. In that case, Leonard
Tillman, a former prisoner in an Ohio County jail, brought suit after he incurred a $4,000 debt from the
assessment of a fee of $10 per day for housing costs stemming from his incarceration in a county facility for
state parole violations. The fee was assessed pursuant to a Cost Recovery Program. The Third Circuit ruled
that the $4,000 assessed in fees were not punitive. Instead, the court held they were rehabilitative in nature.39
Even if the amount assessed were considered a “fine,” and not a “fee,” the Third Circuit held it was not
“excessive” because the fines were not out of proportion to the maximum fine of $100,000 for Tillman’s
convicted offense — possession with intent to deliver approximately 29 grams of cocaine. Using this line of
reasoning, creative litigants could possibly bring specific challenges in cases where an inmate’s fees are
significantly more than the legally permissible statutory fine for the inmate’s crime.
There are instances where inmates’ fees may be disproportionate to their crime. For example, in New York
State, the misdemeanor crime of driving while impaired by the combined influence of drugs or alcohol carries
with it a jail sanction of up to one year and a fine of up to $1,000. Hypothetically, if an individual sentenced
under this statute racked up jail fees in excess of $1,000 during their stay, there would be a compelling case to

6| BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE

	
  
	
  

be made that the fees are excessive under the Eighth Amendment due to the fine’s disproportion to the
maximum statutory fine.
Another strong challenge to these practices lies with litigants who can contest fees where officials have
described their intent as punitive. This opening is ripe for litigation after Tillman in jurisdictions where
policymakers and jail and prison officials have made it clear that their fees are partly or wholly punitive in
nature. Punitive fees place themselves squarely within the Eighth Amendment’s excessive fines clause. These
fines are unnecessarily excessive because an inmate is already deprived of his or her liberty pursuant to
incarceration. It is overly punitive because the inmate has already been punished through deprivation of
liberty and therefore additional fees are disproportionate and excessive.
Litigants can also turn toward the “evolving standards of decency” jurisprudence when challenging inmate
fees. In the 1958 case of Trop v. Dulles, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law that allowed Trop, a nativeborn American, to be stripped of his citizenship for the crime of wartime desertion.40 Emphasizing the
flexibility in the wording of the Eighth Amendment, Justice Warren wrote that “the Amendment must draw
its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.”41 Although
this standard has traditionally been applied in the context of the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the
Eighth Amendment, Justice Warren’s words could equally refer to the entire Eighth Amendment, thus
applicable to the excessive fines clause.
Given the massive growth of the correctional population in the U.S., one could argue that the “evolving
standards of decency” should carry the day to protect poor inmates from becoming burdened with debt while
incarcerated.

CHARGING INMATES PERPETUATES MASS INCARCERATION | 7

	
  
	
  
	
  

II. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
The incarceration rate has more than quintupled since 1970. This is the result of our decades-long
dependence on incarceration as our primary way to combat crime. A vastly expanded prison population has
necessitated an accompanying growth in prison facilities, correctional officers, health care providers, and
other services related to corrections. It is no surprise that governments have looked for new ways to pay for
the soaring costs of incarceration. But the solution to these escalating expenditures should not come from
inmates and their families. While solutions are not easy, there are opportunities to minimize fees charged to
those behind bars.
Governments should take action to minimize fees charged to those behind bars. Specifically, policymakers
should:
•

Revisit collection practices: Once inmates leave correctional custody, accumulated debts create a
prolonged involvement with the justice system. Chasing down formerly incarcerated people, the
majority of whom are poor, to collect these debts is often ineffective. These collection efforts often
cost more than jurisdictions recoup in revenue. Jurisdictions should look critically at the efficacy of
their collection practices.

•

Limit the scope of statutes: Many laws are written vaguely or provide excessive leeway, allowing
correctional facilities and sheriffs to charge exorbitant fees to inmates. Criminal justice statutes
should be amended to set reasonable limits on the discretion to assess such fees.

•

Improve indigency waivers in statutes: Many state statutes allow for waivers of medical and other
fees if the inmate is indigent or has less than a specific amount in their commissary accounts.
However, some statutes are silent on the subject. All statutes should require that corrections
promulgate rules authorizing waiver of fees in circumstances where the inmate is indigent.

•

Set caps on criminal justice debt: Setting caps on how much criminal justice debt one can owe will
curb spiraling debts. These fines are also counterproductive to ensuring inmates’ best reintegration
into society. Many individuals are saddled with court fees, child support, and perhaps even
restitution. Piling on a bill from their time behind bars pushes some individuals into a world of
insurmountable debt.

•

Conduct a national survey and share the results: A national survey of policies at county jails and
state departments of corrections would help determine how widespread this practice is currently. It is
difficult to convince policymakers of the need to enact legislation to combat these practices without
an accurate depiction of how widespread the problem is in each jurisdiction.

Our nation’s high incarceration rates arose from deliberate policy choices over the past few decades. Our
dependence on incarceration has taxed state and local budgets from coast to coast. It is time for us to take a
collective breath and think thoughtfully about how to fund the nation’s jails and prisons in a way that reflects
values of fairness, equality, and the real purpose of punishment.

8| BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE

	
  
	
  

CONCLUSION
During the quarter century since 1990, incarceration rates have exploded, increasing over 90 percent and
adding about 1.1 million additional people to the prison population. This growth in the number of Americans
behind bars has created a staggering price tag. It is understandable that jails and prisons would look to offset
costs for housing these individuals. However, it is unreasonable to require a population whose debt to society
is already being paid by the sentences imposed, 80 percent of whom are indigent, to help foot the bill.
Despite growing awareness of the problem, jurisdictions facing budget constraints continue to implement
policies to charge inmates fees while behind bars. While the excessive fines clause of the Eighth Amendment
provides only one narrow opening for litigation, it provides a legal challenge to these practices. Further,
advocates can build off of these legal challenges to craft new arguments to challenge these measures in
statehouses across the country. A combined advocacy strategy of litigation and policy reform can be a
powerful tool to impact change in the area of criminal justice debt behind bars.

CHARGING INMATES PERPETUATES MASS INCARCERATION | 9

	
  
	
  
	
  

ENDNOTES
	
  
Alexes Harris, et al., Drawing Blood from Stones: Legal Debt and Social Inequality in the Contemporary United States, 115 AM. J.
SOC. 1753, 1756 (2010).

1

DOUGLAS EVANS, THE DEBT PENALTY: EXPOSING THE FINANCIAL BARRIERS TO OFFENDER REINTEGRATION, JOHN
JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE 7 (2014), available at
http://justicefellowship.org/sites/default/files/The%20Debt%20Penalty_John%20Jay_August%202014.pdf (citing
Alexes Harris, et al., Drawing Blood from Stones: Legal Debt and Social Inequality in the Contemporary United States, 115 AM. J.
SOC. 1753-1799 (2010); NATIONAL CENTER FOR VICTIMS OF CRIME, MAKING RESTITUTION REAL: FIVE CASE STUDIES
ON IMPROVING RESTITUTION COLLECTION 3 (2011), available at http://www.victimsofcrime.org/docs/restitutiontoolkit/e4_making-restitution-real.pdf).
2

ALICIA BANNON, ET AL., BRENNAN CTR. FOR JUSTICE, CRIMINAL JUSTICE DEBT: A BARRIER TO REENTRY 4 (2010),
available at http://brennan.3cdn.net/c610802495d901dac3_76m6vqhpy.pdf.	
  

3

U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE CIVIL RIGHTS DIV., INVESTIGATION OF THE FERGUSON POLICE DEPARTMENT 13-14 (2015),
available at www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/pressreleases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf.
4

5

Matt Apuzzo & John Eligon, Ferguson Police Tainted by Bias, Justice Department Says, N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 4, 2015.

See TRACEY KYCKELHAHN, BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, JUSTICE EXPENDITURE AND EMPLOYMENT EXTRACTS,
2011 — TRELIMINARY tbl. 1 (2014), available at http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5050 (showing FY
2010 state and federal corrections expenditure was $80,678,186,000); see also Budget History Tables, U.S. DEP’T OF EDUC.,
http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/history/index.html.
6

7 MICHAEL MITCHELL & MICHAEL LEACHMAN, CTR. ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES, CHANGING PRIORITIES:
STATE CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORMS AND INVESTMENTS IN EDUCATION (2014), available at
http://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/10-28-14sfp.pdf.

MICHAEL MITCHELL & MICHAEL LEACHMAN, CTR. ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES, CHANGING PRIORITIES:
STATE CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORMS AND INVESTMENTS IN EDUCATION (2014), available at
http://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/10-28-14sfp.pdf.
8

9 See Kim Shayo Buchanan, It Could Happen to “You”: Pay-to-Stay Jail Upgrades, 106 MICH. L. REV. FIRST IMPRESSIONS 60
(2007).
10 See TRACEY KYCKELHAHN, BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, STATE CORRECTIONS EXPENDITURES, FY 1982-2010
(2014), available at http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/scefy8210.pdf (“Between 1982 and 2001, total state
corrections expenditures increased each year, rising from $15.0 billion to $53.5 billion in real dollars. Between 2002 and
2010, expenditures fluctuated between $53.4 billion and $48.4 billion”).
11 See LAUREN E. GLAZE & DANIELLE KAEBLE, BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, CORRECTIONAL POPULATIONS IN THE
UNITED STATES, 2013 (2014), available at http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus13.pdf.

BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, CORRECTIONAL POPULATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1990, available at
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/134946NCJRS.pdf.
12

	
  

10| BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE

	
  
	
  

	
  
Compare SUE A. LINDGREN, BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, JUSTICE EXPENDITURE AND EMPLOYMENT EXTRACTS,
1992 tbl. E (1997), available at http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/CJEE92.PDF (providing FY 1982 state and
federal total justice system expenditures at $35,841,916,000), with TRACEY KYCKELHAHN, BUREAU OF JUSTICE
STATISTICS, JUSTICE EXPENDITURE AND EMPLOYMENT EXTRACTS, 2012 — CRELIMINARY tbl. 1 (2015), available at
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5239 (providing FY 2012 state and federal total justice system
expenditures at $265 160,340,000).
13

Joseph Shapiro, As Court Fees Rise, The Poor are Paying the Price, (National Public Radio broadcast May 19, 2014), available
at http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/312158516/increasing-court-fees-punish-the-poor.

14

15 CHRIS ALBIN-LACKEY, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, PROFITING FROM PROBATION AMERICA’S “OFFENDER-FUNDED”
PROBATION INDUSTRY (2014), available at
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us0214_ForUpload_0.pdf (stating that private companies impose fees
for electronic monitoring, drug testing, and other conditions of probation).

DALE PARENT, NAT’L INST. JUSTICE, RECOVERING CORRECTIONAL COSTS THROUGH OFFENDER FEES 1 (1990),
available at https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/125084NCJRS.pdf.

16

See Beverly Fortune, Lexington Raises Fees for Jail Inmates, LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, July 6, 2012, available at
http://www.kentucky.com/2012/07/06/2250856/lexington-raises-fees-for-jail.html.

17

See Joshua Michtom, Making Prisoners Pay for Their Stay: How a Popular Correctional Program Violates the Ex Post Facto
Clause, 13 PUB. INT. L.J. 187, 201 (2004).

18

See Daniel Shacknai, Prisoners Should Pay Their Rent, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, July 9, 1994, at N19, available at
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-07-09/news/9407090037_1_penalty-white-collar-criminals-prison.

19

See, e.g., Philip P. Pan, Pr. George’s Considers Fee for Jail Food; Corrections Chief’s Plan Troubles Local ACLU, WASH. POST,
June 1, 1998, at B01; Desiree Evans, Doing Time on Their Own Dime: More States Charge Inmates for Stays in Jail, Prison, INST.
FOR S. STUD. (May 19, 2009).
20

21

Pay to Stay Jail Program, BURBANK POLICE DEP’T, http://www.burbankpd.org/programs/pay-to-stay-jail-programs.

22 Jennifer Steinhauer, For $82 a Day, Booking a Cell in a 5-Star Jail, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 29, 2007, available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/us/29jail.html.

Chris De Benedetti, Pay-To-Stay Jail Program Allows Some Convicts to Avoid Tougher Facilities, ARGUS, July 24, 2013, available
at http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_23717278/pay-stay-jail-program-allows-some-convicts-avoid.
23

Alyssa Duranty, Would You Pay to Stay Here? For Some Who Can Shell Out, Jail Comes With Satellite TV, a Gym, Yoga,
ORANGE COUNTY REG., Mar. 13, 2015, available at http://www.ocregister.com/articles/stay-654070-pay-jail.html.

24

25

Pay-For-Stay Program, CORRECTIONS CTR. OF NORTHWEST OHIO, http://www.ccnoregionaljail.org/payforstay.htm.

See Sharon Dolovich, Cruelty, Prison Conditions, and the Eighth Amendment, 84 N.Y.U. L. REV. 881, 892 (2009) (“The
state’s carceral burden is the price society pays for the decision to incarcerate convicted offenders...If society prefers, it
can choose not to incarcerate. But if it wants the benefits of incarceration, society must bear the burden, even if this
choice should oblige the state to provide for the needs of people in prison in ways it routinely fails to do for needy
people in the free world”).

26

Dale Parent, NAT’L INST. JUSTICE, Recovering Correctional Costs through Offender Fees 1 (1990), available at
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/125084NCJRS.pdf.
27

	
  
CHARGING INMATES PERPETUATES MASS INCARCERATION | 11

	
  
	
  
	
  

	
  
28 DONALD

J. FAROLE, JR., & LYNN LANGTON, BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, COUNTY-BASED AND LOCAL PUBLIC
DEFENDER OFFICES, 2007 (2010), available at http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/clpdo07.pdf.
See Pat Nolan, Inmate User Fees: Fiscal Fix or Mirage?, Am. Corr. Assoc. (2003) (citing to Mark Lopez & Kara
Chayriques, Billing Prisoners for Medical Care Blocks Access, 9 NAT’L PRISON PROJECT J. 1, 2 (1994), available at
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publications/journal%209-2.pdf.

29

See MARCUS BERZOFSKY & LAURA M. MARUSCHAK, BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, MEDICAL PROBLEMS OF STATE
AND FEDERAL PRISONERS AND JAIL INMATES, 2011-12 (2015), available at
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5219.
30

31 AM. CIVIL LIB. UNION, ADDING IT UP: THE FINANCIAL REALITIES OF OHIO’S PAY-TO-STAY JAIL POLICIES, available
at http://www.acluohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/AddingItUp2013_06.pdf.

NAT’L INST. OF CORR., FEES PAID BY JAIL INMATES: FINDINGS FROM THE NATION’S LARGEST JAILS (1997), available
at http://static.nicic.gov/Library/013599.pdf.

32

33 NAT’L INST. OF CORR., FEES PAID BY JAIL INMATES: FINDINGS FROM THE NATION’S LARGEST JAILS (1997), available
at http://static.nicic.gov/Library/013599.pdf.

BARBARA KRAUTH, ET AL., NAT’L INST. OF CORR., FEES PAID BY JAIL INMATES: FEE CATEGORIES, REVENUES, AND
MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVES IN A SAMPLE OF U.S. JAILS 2 (2005), available at
https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.nicic.gov/Library/021153.pdf (“Of the 224 survey responses, 202 jurisdictions charge
fees to inmates for at least some programs, functions, or services”).
34

Annie Cutler, Utah Judge Orders a Stop to Jail’s ‘Pay For Stay’ Collection Methods, FOX 13 SALT LAKE CITY, Apr. 10, 2014,
available at http://fox13now.com/2014/04/10/utah-judge-orders-a-stop-to-jails-pay-for-stay-collection-methods.

35

36 Dylan Woolf, County To Charge Inmates For Food, Doctor, ELKO DAILY FREE PRESS, Feb. 6, 2014, available at
http://elkodaily.com/news/county-to-charge-inmates-for-food-doctor/article_b69992e8-8ee8-11e3-82ee001a4bcf887a.html.
37

U.S. Const. amend. VIII.

38

United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321, 322 (1998).

39

Tillman v. Lebanon Cnty. Corr. Facility, 221 F.3d 410, 416 (3d Cir. 2000).

40

Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958).

41

Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 101 (1958).

12| BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE

	
  
	
  

STAY CONNECTED TO THE BRENNAN CENTER
Visit our website at www.brennancenter.org.
Sign up for our electronic newsletters at www.brennancenter.org/signup.
Latest News | Up-to-the-minute information on our work, publications, events and more.
Voting Newsletter | Latest developments, state updates, new research, and media roundup.
Justice Update | Snapshot of our justice work and latest developments in the field.
Fair Courts | Comprehensive news roundup spotlighting judges and the courts.
Money in Politics | Latest state and national developments and original analysis.
Redistricting Round-Up | Analysis of current legal battles and legislative efforts.
Liberty & National Security | Updates on privacy, government oversight, and accountability.
Twitter | www.twitter.com/BrennanCenter
Facebook | www.facebook.com/BrennanCenter
Instagram | www.instagram.com/brennancenter

NEW AND FORTHCOMING BRENNAN CENTER PUBLICATIONS
Solutions:American Leaders Speak Out on Criminal Justice
Edited by Inimai Chettiar and Michael Waldman
Federal Prosecution for the 21st Century
Lauren-Brooke Eisen, Nicole Fortier, and Inimai Chettiar
What Went Wrong with the FISA Court
Elizabeth Goitein and Faiza Patel
Strengthening Intelligence Oversight
Edited by Michael German
Citizens United Five Years Later
Daniel I. Weiner
Election Spending 2014: Outside Spending in Senate Races Since Citizens United
Ian Vandewalker
After Citizens United: The Story in the States
Chisun Lee, Brent Ferguson, and David Earley
Election Day Long Lines: Resource Allocation
Christopher Famighetti, Amanda Melillo, and Myrna Pérez
How to Fix the Voting System
Wendy Weiser, Jonathan Brater, Diana Kasdan, and Lawrence Norden
Democracy & Justice: Collected Writings, Vol. VIII
Brennan Center for Justice
For more information, please visit www.brennancenter.org.

brennan
center
for justice
at New York University School of Law

161 Avenue of the Americas
12th Floor
New York, NY 10013
646-292-8310
www.brennancenter.org