The Untold Story: Jay Learns Who Really Pays for Prison Time

Summary

Summary of "The Untold Story: Jay Learns Who Really Pays for Prison Time"

Podcast Information

• Title: Still My Baby
• Hosts/Authors: Lemonada Media & Campaign Zero
• Episode: The Untold Story: Jay Learns Who Really Pays for Prison Time
• Release Date: March 1, 2022
• Description: This episode delves into the intricate and often hidden financial burdens imposed by the American prison system, specifically focusing on the "Pay to Stay" policy. Through expert insights and personal stories, the episode unpacks how these policies perpetuate the cycle of incarceration and financial hardship for individuals and their families.

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Introduction to the Issue

The episode begins by recounting the infamous case of John Wayne Gacy, a suburban Chicago serial killer whose gruesome crimes shocked the nation in 1978. While Gacy's actions alone are horrifying, the episode uses his story as a gateway to explore a broader systemic issue within the American criminal justice system: the financial implications of incarceration on individuals and society.

Notable Quote:

Jay Ellis [02:20]: "John Wayne Gacy truly becomes a cover, he becomes a political tool."

The Emergence of "Pay to Stay"

In the 1980s, amidst a significant recession, Illinois faced dire budget shortfalls. Representative J.J. Wolf introduced a controversial bill aimed at making offenders financially responsible for their incarceration costs. This policy, known as "Pay to Stay," mandated that individuals pay for their prison expenses, including room, board, and medical costs.

Notable Quote:

Brittany Friedman [06:08]: "Lawmakers in favor one explicitly said the phrase, oh, is this like if you get a hotel bill?"
(Timestamp: 06:08)

Mechanics of "Pay to Stay"

"Pay to Stay" essentially transforms incarcerated individuals into consumers of their own imprisonment. Initially targeted at high-profile criminals like Gacy, the policy gradually expanded to include a broader segment of the incarcerated population. Over time, even minor offenders found themselves burdened with exorbitant fees, leading to a perpetual cycle of debt and re-incarceration.

Expansion and Impact:

• From High-Profile to Widespread: What began as a measure against notorious criminals extended to low-level offenders, often accumulating little debts that translate into significant financial obligations.
• Legal Loopholes: Individuals winning personal injury settlements against the Department of Corrections have their awards seized to cover incarceration costs, further entrenching financial strain.

Notable Quote:

Jay Ellis [08:38]: "It just, it pulls at your heartstrings. And I find it to be the most effective way to get people to do whatever you want."
(Timestamp: 08:38)

Personal Stories Highlighting the System's Flaws

One poignant narrative is that of Corey Booth, a young man whose minor theft led to a cascade of financial and legal troubles. Initially jailed for stealing a lawnmower, Corey couldn't afford bail, resulting in his incarceration and subsequent debt. Continuous cycles of debt accumulation led to repeated incarcerations, severely impacting his personal and family life.

Notable Quote:

Jay Ellis [21:39]: "Corey was not an isolated case. For a lot of people in rural Missouri, this is their life."
(Timestamp: 21:39)

Broader Financial Implications

The episode elaborates on the extensive network of fines and fees that permeate every stage of the criminal justice system. From arrest to probation, individuals are subjected to various charges that collectively amount to a staggering $27.6 billion in fines and fees across the United States.

Notable Highlight:

• Types of Fees: Police transport, case filing fees, electronic monitoring, drug testing, and more.
• Economic Strain on Individuals: Even minimal fees can lead to insurmountable debt, especially when coupled with low wages earned during incarceration.

Notable Quote:

LB Eisen [12:53]: "At a minimum, $27.6 billion of fines and fees is owed across the United States."
(Timestamp: 12:53)

Systemic Failures and Inefficiencies

Despite the introduction of "Pay to Stay" with the intent of raising revenue and holding offenders accountable, the actual financial recovery has been minimal. In Illinois, for instance, only about 15% of the $11 million sought through lawsuits was recovered, questioning the efficacy and financial rationality of such policies.

Notable Quote:

Brittany Friedman [31:28]: "Out of the 102 lawsuit complaints that we have for Illinois that we analyzed in the lawsuits, the state was seeking to recover a little over $11 million across these 102 cases. But what's interesting is that the court only granted partial or full judgments in the amount of 1 million."
(Timestamp: 31:28)

Juvenile Impact and the Criminalization of Poverty

The episode also addresses how these policies extend to juveniles, exacerbating financial and social hardships for young individuals and their families. Instead of focusing on rehabilitation, the juvenile system often entangles young offenders in a web of debt and prolonged legal troubles, contradicting the system's rehabilitative ideals.

Notable Quote:

Nadia Mozaffer [25:00]: "These fees and fines can be assessed on them. It can be assessed on their parents and guardians, and it really causes a lot of financial hardship for young people and their families."
(Timestamp: 25:00)

Cultural and Societal Reflections

Brittany Friedman delves into the societal mindset that fuels such punitive policies. The prevalent belief in meritocracy and individual blame overlooks systemic issues like lack of safety nets and economic disparities, leading to a culture where financial worth unjustly dictates one's treatment within the justice system.

Notable Quote:

Brittany Friedman [30:09]: "We believe in meritocracy. We believe that people are truly getting what they deserve when they get punished..."
(Timestamp: 30:09)

Call to Action and Path Forward

Activist Katie Ryan emphasizes the need for widespread awareness and legislative change to abolish "Pay to Stay" across all states. The proposed goals include prohibiting fees related to medical copays and room and board for both adults and juveniles. The episode underscores the importance of community education and advocacy to foster a more restorative justice system.

Notable Quote:

Katie Ryan [33:14]: "Educate your friends, family, community members, get everyone fired up about how ridiculous and barbaric this practice is and then contact your legislators to demand that they support a bill..."
(Timestamp: 33:14)

Conclusion

"The Untold Story: Jay Learns Who Really Pays for Prison Time" illuminates the often-overlooked financial burdens imposed by the criminal justice system. Through expert analysis and personal testimonies, the episode highlights the flaws and human costs of policies like "Pay to Stay," advocating for systemic reforms to create a more equitable and rehabilitative justice system.

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Key Takeaways:

• "Pay to Stay" policies impose significant financial burdens on incarcerated individuals and their families, perpetuating cycles of debt and re-incarceration.
• Systemic Inefficiencies result in minimal financial recovery despite extensive fees and fines.
• Juvenile Justice Impact demonstrates the policy's detrimental effects on young offenders and their families.
• Cultural Beliefs in meritocracy and individual blame contribute to the perpetuation of punitive policies.
• Advocacy and Legislative Action are crucial for dismantling "Pay to Stay" and fostering a restorative justice system.

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Further Engagement: For listeners inspired to take action against such injustices, the episode encourages educating communities and reaching out to legislators to support reforms aimed at eliminating financial penalties associated with incarceration.

Transcript

[Megan]

Hi, I'm Megan and I've got a new podcast I think you're going to love. It's called Confessions of a Female Founder, a show where I chat with female entrepreneurs and friends about the sleepless nights, the lessons learned, and the laser focus that got them to where they are today. And through it all, I'm building a business of my own and getting all sorts of practical advice along the way that I'm so excited to share with you. Confessions of a Female Founder is out now. Listen wherever you get your podcast.

[David Duchovny]

Hi everyone, I'm David Duchovny. Join me on my podcast Fail Better, where we use failure as a lens to reflect on the past and analyze the current moment. I speak with makers and performers like Rob Lowe, Rosie o' Donnell, and Kenya Barris, as well as thinkers like Kara Swisher and Nate Silver to understand how both personal setbacks and larger forces impact our world. Listen to Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brittany Friedman]

Lemonada.

[Megan]

This podcast contains difficult content that may be triggering to some listeners. Please be advised.

[David Duchovny]

Plains, Illinois, near Chicago. A man who served time in prison for sex crimes was let out today. They found the bodies of at least three young boys buried under his house. He is charged with murder. Police have been watching John Gacy's suburban Chicago home for the past 10 days.

[Jay Ellis]

What words come to mind for you when you hear the name John Wayne Gacy? Evil killer, maybe even killer clown John.

[David Duchovny]

Gacy, a man who liked to put on a clown suit and entertain children. Now he is charged with one murder and the police have found, at last count, 27 bodies buried under his head, house and garage, and two more in a nearby river.

[Jay Ellis]

It didn't take long after the discovery of his horrific crimes in 1978 for Gacy to become a household name in the worst way possible. He was, at that time, America's most prolific murderer ever. Gacy was now more than a name. It was a representation of unthinkable evil.

[Megan]

Prosecutor called Gacy a vile, evil, diabolical murderer who must be held responsible for his acts. Gacy chuckled.

[Jay Ellis]

But as he was sitting on death row, Gacy did something a bit unexpected. He started painting.

[Brittany Friedman]

He actually really began cultivating this love of art and actually was able to gain a pretty sizable following. And his art became a very hot commodity.

[Jay Ellis]

His paintings started selling to collectors and there's this morbid interest in the art of a killer clown, which, by the way, a lot of his paintings were of himself as a clown. Yikes. Suddenly, Gacy's got a bit of a Business going from his jail cell.

[Brittany Friedman]

The Department of Corrections in Illinois gets incredibly upset by this, and there's a lot of upheaval in the public and outcry as to how can someone who has done this really literally being the killer next door, Right. Because he lived in this suburban neighborhood in Chicago, creating this house of horrors, and now he's making money off of it in the Department of Corrections. Like, what are they going to do about it?

[Jay Ellis]

This is the untold criminal injustice. I'm your host, Jay Ellis. The injustices we're talking about this year don't stop with felony sentences for petty theft and very dubious forensic practices. Everything in our country's vast prison industrial complex costs money and quite a lot of it. And with that reality comes an important question. Who exactly is footing that bill? Lawmakers try to keep programs going, but also keep taxes low. Any trick they can come up with to make it happen, they're going to use it. And it's easy to look at that balanced budget and not think about who's suffering because of it. Today we look at the trick that Illinois found in the 80s, because if John Gacy's art drama was just about him, we could just get our true crime on for a little bit, feel creeped out, and move on. Right. But no, his story is part of just how expensive it has become to be incarcerated in America. But before we go any further, I need to introduce you to that voice we heard telling us about Gacy at the top of the show.

[Brittany Friedman]

I am Brittany Friedman. I'm an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Southern California. And most of my research actually looks at deviance on the side of institutions.

[Jay Ellis]

Aha. Deviance on the side of institution. That sounds more like our show. But why are Brittany and I telling you about a killer clown? Well, to answer that, we have to look at what else was going on in Illinois at that time.

[Brittany Friedman]

So you have John Wayne Gacy. You have the fact that he's pretty much created a stain, if you will, in the Chicago area. So they're concerned about someone profiting from infamy, but they're also concerned about the fact that they are facing serious budget shortfalls.

[Jay Ellis]

In the 1980s, Illinois and the whole country really was going through a pretty big recession. People are slashing budgets for programs left and right. And the Illinois state legislature was asking themselves, how can we raise some dough? Well, One guy, Representative J.J. wolf, had.

[Brittany Friedman]

An idea, and when he brings the bill to the floor, he literally says, as a direct quote, he's like, I was Reading the Reader's Digest the other day, and Michigan has this book, great law, where they're holding offenders accountable for their incarceration.

[Jay Ellis]

Holding offenders accountable for their incarceration turned out to be an important choice of words. And we'll get into why in a little bit. But over time, this idea has gained a catchy name in criminal justice circles. Pay to stay. Pay to stay basically means if you serve time in prison, you will be responsible for the cost of it all. Your room, your food, your medical costs. If it costs money while you're in car, incarcerated, that is no longer on me, the taxpayer, that is now on you, the offender.

[Brittany Friedman]

The lawmakers in favor one explicitly said the phrase, oh, is this like if you get a hotel bill? And it's because they were trying to use this sort of, you know, we provide a service, incarcerated people are consuming it. And that's where the nature of that phrase came from. And so what they did is they made the pay to stay bills look very similar to what you get when you stay in a hotel.

[Jay Ellis]

Just not any hotel I would want to be caught dead in. Now, some lawmakers were on board, but not enough of them to get it passed. So what does Representative Wolf do to get that extra push on this idea of accountability? Well, he invokes the name of the serial killer that's on everyone's mind.

[Brittany Friedman]

He essentially becomes a moral problem that needs to be solved. Right. He needs to be held accountable in the moment. And so that is a situation that is a short term problem that is ideal to latch onto and present as the overarching argument for why you need a massive policy shift. Because expanding pay to stay and passing a law like that, it's massive because you're talking about not just charging John Wayne Gacy, they're talking about charging the entire correctional population if they can, and seizing assets of people after they've done their own forensic accounting to discover money. And so John Wayne Gacy truly becomes a cover, is the best way to describe him. He becomes a cover, he becomes a political tool.

[Jay Ellis]

Brittany says that she's seen this tactic used a lot throughout history. Even you right now might be saying to yourself, well, Jay, I mean, I kind of don't have sympathy for John Wayne Gacy. If he's making thousands of dollars off of paintings, maybe he should pay for his incarceration. But that's exactly why it works so well.

[Brittany Friedman]

It just, it pulls at your heartstrings. And I find it to be the most effective way to get people to do whatever you want. Especially vote for something that is where in my opinion, you see some of the most punitive policies coming out of mass incarceration. They all originated as a way, supposedly or allegedly to right some sort of wrong. So who's gonna stand against this? With this opener with Representative Wolf, who's gonna stand up and say, yeah, John Wayne Gacy should profit? They get booed out.

[Jay Ellis]

So the bill passes almost unanimously. And at first it did seem like the state would only pursue money from the John Wayne Gacy's of the world, the kingpins, as they said in transcripts, Brittany studied. But years and decades go by and here and there, little by little, amendments are passed and the percentage of the incarcerated population that is included in Pay to Stay practice grows.

[Brittany Friedman]

Pretty soon someone can have as little as $10,000, nothing like what Gacy was earning. Often it is jointly held with a dependent or a spouse and the state will sue them for at least six figures.

[Jay Ellis]

And what's more, pay to stay didn't just stay in Illinois and Michigan. Pay to stay or some form of it is on the books in your state. And we'll talk about what that means and just how deep this idea goes after the break. Foreign.

[Reshma Sajani]

Hey, I'm Reshma Sajani, founder of Girls who Code and Moms First. I consider myself a pretty successful adult woman, so why is it that in midlife as I'm about to turn 50, I feel so stuck? Join me as I try to find the answer on my so called Midlife from Lemonada Media. I talk to experts and extraordinary guests about divorce, exercise, menopause, sex, drugs and more to understand what we're going through and and how to make the most of it. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I'm Hasan Minhaj and I have been lying to you. I only pretended to be a comedian so I could trick important people into coming on my podcast. Hasan Minhaj doesn't know to ask them the tough questions that real journalists are way too afraid to ask. People like Senator Elizabeth Warren. Is America too dumb for democracy?

[Megan]

Outrageous.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Parenting expert Dr. Becky how do you skip consequences without raising a psychopath?

[Brittany Friedman]

That's a good question.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Listen to Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know from Lemonada Media. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brittany Friedman]

Someone could sue the Department of Corrections in Illinois for an injury sustained in custody, usually because of violence at the hands of either police officers when they are arrested or or correctional officers while they were incarcerated, and they would win a personal injury settlement and DOC would use that as evidence that they could pay for their incarceration and then try to countersue them for the money that they just won from DOC for their pay to stay bill.

[Jay Ellis]

What Brittany Friedman just said might sound crazy, but it's true. In 40 years, we've gone from an idea that we're only going to go after the money of the filthy rich mega criminals to pay for their prison costs to saying, hey, you just won a lawsuit against us. I guess that means you got a lot of money now. Time to pay up for the prison time that got you injured in the first place. Brittany's been researching pay to stay policy in Illinois, specifically, where this definition of wealthy has become pretty absurd in a lot of cases she's looked at. But pay to stay isn't just in Illinois, it's everywhere. And I now know that it's just part of what's really a whole system of fees.

[LB Eisen]

These are charges such as police transport. So if someone is arrested, they may have to actually pay a fee for the ride to booking and case filing fees. There are felony surcharges.

[Jay Ellis]

This is LB Eisen, director of the Brennan center for justice at New York University. She was kind enough to sit with me and explain just how many fees there are at stage of the criminal justice system.

[LB Eisen]

And then we have fees that really follow people sort of throughout the criminal legal system. There may be fees once someone is incarcerated. If someone is on probation or parole, there could be fees for electronic monitoring, fees for drug testing, which tends to be a condition that's required for a lot of individuals on probation and parole. So, you know, these are just few of the many examples of these types of fees.

[Jay Ellis]

So maybe I'm just a little bit confused, but are our taxes not covering these fees? Isn't that what like we pay taxes for essentially to cover how the system functions and moves? So we wouldn't have to necessarily charge fees to folks who are being charged with crimes.

[LB Eisen]

Our taxes might be paying for some of the courthouse services. I might be paying for some of the salaries for the government officials involved in the criminal legal system. But what we have found is that the criminal justice system has become so expensive that governments are charging individuals for being involved in the criminal legal system. And these fees are revenue generating for county and state governments. It's very rare that you would leave the criminal legal system without some sort of debt. Right. Or that you would not have incurred fees and fines because they are truly at every sort of aspect of the system, whether it's pretrial, all these case filing fees. There are fees for public defenders and.

[Jay Ellis]

A little Ding here, nickel and dime over there, a little cream off the top over here. It adds up to the tune of.

[LB Eisen]

At a minimum, $27.6 billion of fines and fees is owed across the United States.

[Jay Ellis]

Whoa, whoa. Hey, producers, can y' all run that back for me one time?

[LB Eisen]

$27.6Bn of fines and fees.

[Jay Ellis]

I know you can't see me right now, so just picture like the cartoon eye blinking thing.

[LB Eisen]

And that's truly an underestimate that merely scratches the surface given the number of states that just don't track this data at all.

[Jay Ellis]

Wow.

[LB Eisen]

And we know that incarcerated workers are paid pennies on the dollar, if at all. So we're not talking about people who are even earning a minimum wage. But most incarcerated workers could earn 10, 20, 25 cents an hour. If you're in a state where you are incarcerated and you are required to work, much of your salary gets deducted to recoup expenses for food, recoup expenses for that prison bed you're sleeping in.

[Jay Ellis]

I mean, it sounds like most of them are walking out with a bill. It sounds like even with the work, the pennies on the dollar work that they're doing, it sounds like a good portion of them are actually walking out, still owing plenty of money when you add in all that. Right.

[LB Eisen]

Many of them are. And there are states who will send formerly incarcerated individuals bills after they leave prison. The Illinois Department of Corrections did send individuals bills once they were released from prison. Florida has done the same thing. Florida law allows the Florida Department of corrections to charge $50 a day for the cost of incarceration. And they sometimes will charge individuals for their stay in prison.

[Jay Ellis]

Which brings us right back. To pay to stay. But in another instance of our criminal justice system being totally not frustrating at all, pay to stay works just a little bit differently everywhere you go. Campaign Zero has been looking at every state in the union and found that in all 50, it usually exists either in fees for room and board or fees for medical costs, or both. In Missouri, until very, very recently, it was common for sheriffs to charge pay to stay fees to people incarcerated in rural county jails. And remember how I said that in Michigan and Illinois, this policy was talked about after economic downturns.

[Tony Messenger]

Well, in Missouri and elsewhere, the practice really got exacerbated after the Great Recession in 2008 or so, because that's when counties started realizing that they were losing revenue and they were looking for places to raise money.

[Jay Ellis]

I think I see a pattern. Tony messenger is a columnist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch In 2019, he won a Pulitzer for the series of articles he wrote about how people were being impacted by board bills, which is basically Missouri's term for pay to stay. His work really revealed the biggest problems with this policy.

[Tony Messenger]

The only way to force that collection was to put these poor people back in jail if they were behind on paying their board bills for previous stays. So what happens in these cases is somebody goes before the judge and they've been in jail for say 30 days on a shoplifting charge and they agree to plead guilty and the judge issues them a sentence of time served. They get out of jail and now they owe money for the 30 days they were in jail. So up to $1,500 or so, say $50 a day. Sometimes the people would show up in court and they would, you know, make whatever payment they could, fifty bucks, a hundred dollars, try to pay it down.

[Jay Ellis]

But let's face it, I mean, most people can't come up with 1,500 bucks on the spot like that, which means another court date.

[Tony Messenger]

And sometimes when you're poor and the judge is telling you to come to court and you don't have the money, you're afraid. You think you're going to be arrested. And sure enough, it's a self fulfilling prophecy because if you skip the court date, you're going to be issued a warrant for your arrest and put in jail because you skipped a court date. But really they're being put in jail because they're poor, because they couldn't afford to pay the jail board bill that was issued to them.

[Jay Ellis]

And you see where this is going now you're back in jail, you're racking up even more debt every single day.

[Tony Messenger]

One of the people I wrote about was a gentleman named Corey booth. Corey was 17 years old in Caldwell county when he stole a lawnmower. You know, a stupid teenage thing to do. He got arrested, he ended up going to jail. He couldn't afford bail. Keep in mind, it was a broken lawnmower from a neighbor's yard. The lawnmower was already returned by the time he got arrested, but they still put him in jail and gave him a bail that he couldn't afford. He was a poor 17 year old kid. He's there for a few days. They eventually bring him before the judge and he says, yes, I'll plead guilty if you let me out of jail. He pleads guilty, he gets out of jail, he gets the bill. Well, then he's got to be supervised by this private probation company and he has to do drug testing. One of the things all of these probation companies do is even if your charge has absolutely nothing to do with drugs, they test you for drugs. And if you miss a drug testing or you can't afford to pay for the drug testing, you've now violated your probation and might go to jail for that. Well, Corey Booth was a young man who smoked pot, and so he failed the drug test. And so he got put back in jail. And his bill got higher and higher. His initial bill was a few hundred dollars. By the time I met Corey, 10 years later, he's now 27 years old. He's still going back to the judge once a month over this singular charge of stealing the lawnmower when he was a 17 year old kid. He's married and has kids. And he used to tell me that every month he would have to decide whether or not he robbed from Peter to pay Paul. You know, do his kids get medicine or does he pay the judge money? And when he didn't have money to pay the judge, he went back to jail again. And then his bill got higher.

[Jay Ellis]

Corey was not an isolated case. For a lot of people in rural Missouri, this is their life.

[Tony Messenger]

These are folks who, if they're lucky enough to have a job, they have a minimum wage job, and then once a month they have to take off work for half a day so that they can go sit in court with 30 or 40 or 50 other people and take their turn standing before the judge and saying, here's my 50 bucks, here's my hundred bucks, please don't put me in jail this week. For people who don't have the money in the counties that would not release them from that debt. There was no way out of the cycle.

[Jay Ellis]

You don't have the money, they put you in jail. It's hard for me to see this as anything other than the criminalization of poverty itself. Look, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be consequences for doing something bad, but those consequences should eventually come to an end, right? And then you can move on with your life. These pay to stay fees, they add a whole bonus round of consequences. That's not justice. Okay, let's take a breather because when we come back, we'll talk about another population affected by pay to stay, but we'll also talk about what can be done about it.

[Megan]

Hi, I'm Erica Mahoney. You don't know me, but you know a version of my story. Because by now we've all felt the impact of senseless gun violence.

[Jay Ellis]

I think A stray bullet flew past me because I hear the it was.

[LB Eisen]

That horrible feeling of dread.

[Jay Ellis]

Something's wrong.

[Megan]

Four years ago, my dad was killed in a mass shooting. My podcast Senseless is about moving forward after the unthinkable Senseless from Lemonada Media, premiering June 17th.

[Reshma Sajani]

I'm Meredith Goldstein, host of the Boston.

[Katie Ryan]

Globe's Love Letters podcast, which features real.

[Jay Ellis]

People from all over the world telling stories about their relationship lives.

[Megan]

This season we're talking about how to change for the better.

[Jay Ellis]

I just remember thinking like, wow, this is what a healthy relationship looks and feels like.

[Reshma Sajani]

The reason why I'm getting emotional is.

[Jay Ellis]

I didn't want to leave you.

[Brittany Friedman]

I never thought I would be this way again.

[Megan]

Join us at Love Letters, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tony Messenger]

State lawmakers started to pay attention and realized that this is just not just we have to pass a law that says you can't put people in jail because they couldn't afford to pay their previous jail board bill. It's unconstitutional, it's illegal. It shouldn't be happening.

[Jay Ellis]

The story of pay to stay isn't quite over. In Missouri, the policy is still on the books, but that law passed and sheriffs have mostly stopped pursuing the money. But what Tony said right there at the end, it shouldn't be happening. That's what I want to focus on for a bit. In the research that we've done on pay to stay, we found that it's not just incarcerated adults who live in this culture of fees our nation's juveniles are paying too.

[Nadia Mozaffer]

These fees and fines can be assessed on them. It can be assessed on their parents and guardians, and it really causes a lot of financial hardship for young people and their families.

[Jay Ellis]

Nadia Mozaffer is a senior attorney at Juvenile Law center and she told us that there's a special way unique to kids that pay to stay plays out in day to day life.

[Nadia Mozaffer]

A very common way that courts or other agencies charge parents when their kids are taken from home is through the child support framework that is already in place in order to get parents to pay child support for their young people. And so what states and counties do is they use those same calculations, except they essentially say that the state can pay $0. And then they look at the child support calculations and then they look at the parents income and other assets and come up with a number of how much parents should be able to pay.

[Jay Ellis]

Okay, okay. All right. Let me, let me break this down because it's hard to understand. At first the state takes your kid away and then the state says for Right now, I'm their parent, and you, you have to pay me child support. Come on, man. I mean, could you imagine being told all of this as a parent who likely is already going through one of the worst situations of your life?

[Nadia Mozaffer]

I talked to a mother in Michigan who reported going on food stamps because she couldn't pay for the fees and fines associated with her son's placement. Parents have been able, unable to pay for groceries, really a lot of basic necessities that their other kids might need because of this. And then we really have to remember that it's not just the financial burden. It's the financial burden during a very traumatic time where a young person is removed from their home completely against the wishes of the parents, often put in a facility where they're subject to so many other harmful experiences. And while the parents have to miss their child, have to worry about them being so far away, have to think about how they're doing, what's going to happen to them in the future, we're adding the additional layer of significant financial burden. And that is just extremely harmful for both the parent and the young person that's just trying to get over this very traumatic time in their lives. Unfortunately, when fees and fines are assessed, they are less able to pay for resources that can support their young person, that can support a child and help them through whatever concerns they're having that are leading them to the juvenile justice system. If a young person can't pay off their fees and fines, often they're on probation longer. And so that just creates more opportunities for them to do little things that get them in trouble, and then they land back in the juvenile justice system.

[Jay Ellis]

And this is especially bad because it flies in the face of one of the things that has always made the juvenile system in America different from the adult system attitude. The juvenile system has always been ideally about rehabilitation, more so than the adult system. We still want to believe that most kids will have plenty of time to turn their lives around, and juvenile policies, again, ideally reflect that.

[Nadia Mozaffer]

So they have to be age appropriate. They have to be designed so a young person recognizes what they did wrong, why they're being punished for it, and still has some sort of understanding of how to move forward with their lives. Because the juvenile justice system is a time limited system. We designed it separately because we understand young people need different things than adults.

[Jay Ellis]

But when I hear people like Nadia describe the juvenile system, it makes me think, well, why can't the entire justice system be about rehabilitation? Now, remember way back at the beginning of the episode when that idea that became pay to stay was first being talked about in Illinois. They called it holding offenders accountable for their incarceration, like it would be a new standard. But for hundreds of years before that point, we were holding offenders accountable by removing them from society for a time. It's only relatively recently, conveniently tied to times when states needed money, that suddenly the incarcerated are viewed as consumers, consumers of their own incarceration.

[Brittany Friedman]

Because our society is capitalists. It's not just isolation. It's like we also have to take everything that you're financially worth, too, because here your worth is equal to what you have financially. There's not a restorative ethos in our culture. The best way to describe it is, I think, in our society, we believe in meritocracy. We believe that people are truly getting what they deserve when they get punished, or however much money they have is truly what they deserve. Their education. We like to believe that everybody's physical output or whatever their life situation is, is solely the product of their individual behavior. And I think because we believe that so clearly, even though the sociological research and other fields show otherwise, it has a lot more to do with the type of society you live in than purely your individual will. Then you would predict in a society like that that if someone is incarcerated, you say, yeah, you're there because of everything that you have done of your own making, so you deserve nothing. As opposed to taking a look at our society and say, why are we. Why do we have a society where we over incarcerate? Why do we have a society that has no safety net? Or we're a society that creates situations where people would have to commit crimes of poverty. We don't ask these questions because we just assume that it's all based on merit. So, of course, incarcerated people don't deserve to have any money. They don't deserve anything.

[Jay Ellis]

If our show has reaffirmed anything for me this year, it's that our current attitude, you know, how we look at and think about incarceration is not working. Thinking strictly in terms of balanced budgets has come at a huge cost to our society. In fact, both Tony messenger in Missouri and Brittany Friedman in Illinois told me that everything they've looked at shows this isn't even working financially.

[Brittany Friedman]

Out of the 102 lawsuit complaints that we have for Illinois that we analyzed in the lawsuits, the state was seeking to recover a little over $11 million across these 102 cases. But what's interesting is that the court only granted partial or full judgments in the amount of 1 million. Right. So it's like about 15% of their initial attachment requests. And so I think for someone who actually cares about how the state is spending taxpayers dollars, the first question then that comes up is that if you're only able to recoup 50, 15% of this 11 million, how much money did you spend trying to get that 1.7 million? Do we really just want to prove a point on the taxpayer's dime? Prove a point that these people don't deserve this money?

[Katie Ryan]

I refuse to believe that as a society we collectively would agree that human beings should live in perpetual punishment.

[Jay Ellis]

I took all that I learned about pay to stay and ran it by activist Katie Ryan. And she says the fact that this backwards policy still exists isn't for lack of compassion.

[Katie Ryan]

I think a lot of this is the absence of awareness and that once it is out there, people will be outraged enough to demand change and we actually can start moving towards a more restorative society where people actually have opportunity to prove themselves and to re engage in day to day life in a way that instills hope.

[Jay Ellis]

Now look, I know that seems like a tall order, so I asked her to break it down to specific goals for ending pay to stay.

[Katie Ryan]

We want to see in all 50 states, in Washington D.C. laws introduced that prohibit pay to stay fees in four different classifications. So the four categories that we're tracking and have really examined at the state level are one adult medical copays, two. Adult fees for room and board, three juvenile medical copays, and four, juvenile fees for room and board while incarcerated.

[Jay Ellis]

Okay, so I'm in and I want to help. And if you feel the same way, then what should we do?

[Katie Ryan]

Educate your friends, family, community members, get everyone fired up about how ridiculous and barbaric this practice is and then contact your legislators to demand that they support a bill and they support legislation that will categorically end the practice of charging individuals who have been incarcerated after their release for their room and board and medical copays.

[Jay Ellis]

Folks, we have covered a lot this season and look, I get it. It is easy to become overwhelmed by this feedback loop of bad policy where even if the crime doesn't fit the punishment, even if the science doesn't check out, you can still be locked up and told, hey, you made your bed, now lie in it. But despite all of that, Katie says that now is not the time to give up.

[Katie Ryan]

What honestly makes me hopeful is that we're moving into a society where we believe people can make mistakes. And then it is our obligation to ensure we have set people up to actually be rehabilitated and re enter society that human beings do not deserve to be in the perpetual hamster wheel of punishment.

[Jay Ellis]

The Untold Story Criminal Injustice is a Lemonada Media original. It's produced by Matthew Simonson and Ray Solomon, with production assistance by Rochelle Green, Carli Huckles and Rachel Leitner. Story editing by Matthew Simonson Music by Hannis Brown Sound design and mixing by Matthew Simonson. The Untold Story is brought to you in part by the Just Trust. Our executive producers are Jessica Cordova, Kramer, Stephanie Willis, Wax, and me. Special thanks to Gabriella Kirk, April Fernandez, Josh Spichler, Joanna Weiss, and everyone else who helped us with this episode. And if you're looking for more Untold Stories, check out Lemonada Premium. It's full of all kinds of extra stuff that you won't want to miss. I'm Jay Ellis, y' all. Thank you for listening.

[Brittany Friedman]

Hey, I'm Nicole Norfleet.

[Jay Ellis]

And I'm Aaron Brown and we work at the Minnesota Star and we've got.

[Megan]

A brand new show called Worth It.

[Jay Ellis]

Every week we get together with a group of people who know Minnesota inside and out.

[Megan]

We skip the Minnesota nights and get right to the good stuff. We share the stories and the happenings around the state.

[Brittany Friedman]

Worth your time and your money.

[Jay Ellis]

Worth it. From the Minnesota Star Tribune and Lemonada.

[Megan]

Media Every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. Tired of the same old political shouting matches and talking points?

[Nadia Mozaffer]

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[Reshma Sajani]

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[Nadia Mozaffer]

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[Megan]

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[Nadia Mozaffer]

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[Megan]

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[Nadia Mozaffer]

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