As the number of people sentenced to terms of incarceration in jails and prisons rose, government agencies found themselves unable to pay the costs. To offset the costs, policymakers and legislators justified a growing number of legislation authorizing fees charged to incarcerated people. These fees, known as “pay-to-stay’ fees can be categorized as: room and board and service specific fees. Service specific fees can include communication and phone call costs, medical fees, and commissary fees. Assessing fees on people involved in our criminal legal system to support government agencies is an inefficient way for the government to raise revenue, and while there is significant work to do to reduce the burden of these fees, there have been a number of modest reforms. This report highlights the burden of fees on incarcerated people and their families while calling for the repeal of laws that allow correctional agencies to charge incarcerated people for their room and board and for the elimination of medical copays.
You can read the full brief here.
Key Findings:
- At least 43 states authorize charging incarcerated people for the cost of their own imprisonment.
- At least 35 states authorize charging them for some medical expenses.
- 40 states and the federal prison system charge incarcerated people medical copays.
- Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of incarcerated people work behind bars.
- Those who work regular jobs in prisons such as maintaining the grounds, working in the kitchen, and painting the walls of the facilities earn on average between $0.14 and $0.63 an hour. Those who work for the state’s correctional industries, such as making furniture for other government agencies, make on average between $0.33 and $1.41 an hour.
- Arkansas and Texas do not pay incarcerated workers; Alabama only pays incarcerated workers employed by the state’s correctional industry.
- Almost every state takes a portion of the salary that incarcerated workers earn to compensate the corrections agency for the cost of feeding, housing, and supervising them.
- Kentucky currently charges the highest rate in the country for a 15-minute phone call, costing incarcerated people between $5.70 and $9.99.
- Incarcerated people in Kentucky experienced a 7.2 percent rise in commissary prices in July 2022.
- Since 2019, both Illinois and New Hampshire have repealed their “pay-to-stay” laws. In 2022, Connecticut revised its law, requiring incarcerated people to pay room and board only after conviction for serious crimes, such as murder, and only after $50,000 of incarceration costs accrue.