Missouri Prisoners Losing Reentry Money to “Incarceration Reimbursement”
A little-known Missouri law allows the state to confiscate money from prisoners to pay for the costs of their incarceration. That alone is sadly not unusual; most states have some sort of “pay-to-stay” policy. But the severity of such laws—and how harshly their consequences fall on re-entering prisoners—can vary widely from state to state.
Missouri’s statute dates to 1988, and it permits the state to seize assets, including settlements from lawsuits against the Department of Corrections (DOC). That’s right: A prisoner can win a suit against DOC and still lose the payout when the agency snatches it back.
“Our office enforces the statute passed by the General Assembly,” shrugged Madeline Sieren, a spokeswoman for the office of state Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R), who said the law was “intended to place the burden of the cost of incarceration on the convicted felon, not the Missouri taxpayer.”
Bailey’s office went after incarceration reimbursement from prisoner Marcell Horn when he won a lawsuit against a drug company. Horn, 30, took a medication to help treat his mental health disorder and suffered an unwanted side effect when his body grew breasts like a woman’s. The pharmaceutical company paid him $55,700, and Bailey filed a petition for incarceration reimbursement in October 2023. A judge awarded the state $49,000 in January 2024. Horn never even had a say in the civil matter, where repeated docket entries tell the story: “Respondent appears not, due to incarceration.”
Horn was crushed when the state garnished his settlement. He had hoped to use the money to help support his six children and pay for a family funeral. At Moberly Correctional Center, where he is held, Horn said it was difficult to buy even basic items such as soap and deodorant from the commissary. He does not “think it’s right that they’re doing people like this,” and said that the state should be held accountable.
His is one of 143 reimbursement cases filed by the Attorney General’s Office since 2014, ranging from $1,000 to $934,785. The median is $13,779. The number filed in 2023 was 21, up significantly from the four filed in 2015. Judges have so far ordered $2.5 million garnished and paid to the state, a fraction of DOC’s $947 million annual budget.
It costs over $30,000 yearly to incarcerate an individual in Missouri, but reimbursement rarely even covers enforcement costs, according to Captive Money Lab co-founder Brittany Friedman. The Lab studies incarceration reimbursement policies across the U.S. Friedman, also a professor at the University of Southern California, says incarceration reimbursement statutes “are incredibly behind in terms of what it means to have a just society.”
Criminal justice advocates call “pay-to-stay” laws an ineffective way to finance prison systems that also take needed financial resources away from prisoners reentering society. They are also fundamentally unfair because most do not provide prisoners an attorney, robbing them not only of money but due process, too.
Source: Kansas City Star
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