A report released by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio (ACLU) in June 2013 shows that the pay-to-stay fees charged by Ohio jails do not generate much revenue and damage indigent prisoners and their families. It also showed that the jail with the lowest fees generated the most revenue.

Using freedom of information requests, the ACLU studied the pay-to-stay fees in Ohio jails and issued a report highlighting three representative jails’ pay-to-stay programs. According to a 2007 estimate by the Buckeye Sheriffs’ Association, 60 counties in Ohio had pay-to-stay programs.

Pay-to-stay fees vary from booking fees and medical expenses reimbursement to a charge per day of incarceration (per diem). They became popular among lawmakers seeking to stem the rising cost of incarcerating individuals in local jails. At first blush, they seemed like a good idea—making the people incarcerated in the jails pay for their imprisonment. However, the proponents of pay-to-stay overlooked one salient fact—experts estimate that 80% of jail prisoners are indigent. This makes them poor sources of revenue.

Fairfield County, one of the counties in the report, implemented a pay-to-stay program in 2003. It had a $10 booking fee and a sliding scale of per diem according to a prisoner’s income and number of children. The per diem ran from $5 per day for a person making $5 an hour with at least two children to $60 per day for a single person making $30 an hour. The fees were collected from prisoners’ commissary account’s and outstanding fees were turned over to a collection agency if unpaid 90 days after the prisoner was released.

Intuitively, this system should have been a good generator of revenue. In practice, the fees were so high that few prisoners could pay. Getting the collection agency involved just added an additional expense for the jail and resulted in few additional collections. The collection agency put negative information on the former prisoners’ credit report, making it more difficult for them to find employment and housing. This actually made it harder for this poorest sector of society to pay the outstanding fees. The collection agency part of the program was discontinued in 2009 due to high costs and poor returns.

The result of all this was the collection of only 15% of pay-to-stay fees from 2008-2011. During that period, revenue reduced by 2-3% per month whiles the jail’s population increased by 4% between 2008 and 2010. Fairfield abandoned its pay-to-stay program in August 2012.

Hamilton County lost a lawsuit in 2000 over charging pay-to-stay fees to pretrial detainees. A federal judge ordered the county to pay $1 million in refunds and $150,000 for a prisoner education program. Undeterred by this loss, Hamilton County initiated another pay-to-stay program in 2008 that is limited to convicted prisoners. It consists of a $40 booking fee which is recovered from the prisoners’ commissary accounts so long as there is $5 in an account. Outstanding fees owed upon release are invoiced to the releasee. Indigent prisoners are not charged the fees, but Hamilton County only determined 52% of its prisoners to be indigent, far below the at least 80% estimated by experts. Even so, the county only managed to collect about half of the fees it charged jail prisoners.

The strategy resulted in $142,000 to $192,000 in annual revenue between 2008 and 2011. It is a tiny percentage of the around $31 million in annual jail operational costs and amounts to less than a third of the jail’s annual food budget.

The Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail started a pay-to-stay program when it was opened in 1998. This included a $15 booking charge and $1 per diem. The money is collected from the prisoners’ commissary accounts and fees remaining upon release are written off with no attempt to collect them unless the prisoner is re-incarcerated within three years.

The average stay in the jail was 14 days, making the average fee $29. Probably because of the low daily rate, the jail was able to collect almost all of its fees between 208 and 2011. "This high collection rate more than makes up for the lower fee amounts and allows the jail to cover anywhere from 9.5% to 13.5% of the non-medical inmate supplies."

Since the jail does not use a collection agency, people released from the jail have an easier time finding employment and housing. Their families are less financially stressed during their incarceration since the families—who may be financially stressed due to loss of income while the prisoner is incarcerated—usually are the ones who provide the commissary funds from which the fees are taken.

The report concluded the following: Harsher policies do not lead to higher revenue. Exorbitant fees make payment less likely. Collection agencies do not work. Allowing jail charges to accrue over time is pointless. Indigent prisoners should not be charged fees. The impact of fees on families should be considered when implementing a pay-to-stay fee. First and foremost, the report concluded that jail prisoners are a poor source of income.

Sources: "The Financial Realities of Ohio's Pay-to-Stay Jail Policies," ACLU of Ohio, www.acluohio.org, The Columbus Dispatch

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