Pennsylvania County Forgives $65 Million in Jail Pay-to-Stay Fees
Commissioners of Pennsylvania’s Dauphin County voted on September 19, 2024, to forgive $65,902,534.98 in debt owed by former detainees at the county lockup for unpaid fees they were charged during their incarceration. Such “pay to stay” fees have ballooned over the past few decades, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Jan. 2025, p.1.]
Dauphin County eliminated the fees in 2022. But any debts then outstanding were still owed. That included $14,320 owed by Chad LaVia for 358 days that he spent in the Dauphin County Prison in Harrisburg—and on a charge of which he was eventually acquitted. “The longer you sat in jail, the more debt you incurred, the more debt your family incurred,” said his mother, Judith LaVia Jones. “People sit there pretrial for one year, two years. It’s so wrong.”
The county had resorted to Orwellian efforts at recouping the debt, charging detainees a $125 upfront fee at booking into the jail. If they were unable to pay, their trust accounts would be raided whenever a deposit was made on their behalf. “If I got $100, they were taking $25,” said former detainee Jerome Coleman. “I had a $25 money order come in, they took half of it. You’re essentially being robbed.”
But still, little of the debt was ever collected—far less than the county spent on collection efforts. “This is fake debt to begin with, in that we’re never going to recoup $66 million, and it’s comical to think we would,” said Commissioner Justin Douglas (D), who won his seat in 2023 by campaigning for jail reform and was a champion of the debt forgiveness initiative.
Fellow Commissioner Mike Pries (R) agreed that it was stupid to spend tax funds on recidivism reduction programs when outstanding pay-to-stay debt was hounding former detainees. “We were literally spending money on a good conceptual idea and goal,” he said, “but at the same time keeping individuals from reaching that goal by making it almost impossible to get credit, unable to get a mortgage, unable to rent an apartment, unable to get a car loan.”
The jail’s $125 booking fee remains in effect, and removing it is a battle Douglas said must wait for another day. For her part, LaVia Jones said the experience shook her faith in the criminal justice system built over a 27-year career spent investigating medical fraud for the state.
“I was always proud to say I worked in law enforcement,” she recalled. “When I got a true picture of what it’s like to be poor and to be incarcerated, I started to say to myself, ‘Boy, this criminal justice is not so just.’”
Sources: Bolts Magazine, Harrisburg Patriot-News
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