Comment by mulmen
17 hours ago
Debtors prison is illegal in the US. You can’t be imprisoned for your debts. Are you suggesting sentences are being extended based on unpaid fees?
17 hours ago
Debtors prison is illegal in the US. You can’t be imprisoned for your debts. Are you suggesting sentences are being extended based on unpaid fees?
They are. Debtors prison is illegal with one exception - if you already went to prison due to a crime and then completed your sentence, many states will charge you for the full cost of your prison stay (often upwards of thousands of dollars). And since a lot of sentences involve some amount of parole after the prison sentence, you’ll be sent back to prison under a parole violation if you fail to pay back the fees by the due date.
(source: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/stee...)
This is a better link that directly talks about "pay-to-stay" fees (prison reimbursement). Your link mostly talks about courte fees.
https://endpaytostay.org/pdf/pay-to-stay-report-20250622.pdf
Wow, that’s fucked up.
It's the only way to create career criminals now... The private prisons need career criminals to justify their existence. Career criminals become career criminals because they can't earn their way to an honest living (outside of mental health issues) because of the debts they owe. It's a vicious cycle. They want repeat offender by the time they turn 24. Statistically, that means they'll be in and out of the system for life.