The hidden prison of fines and fees

For me, the great revelation in this week’s cover story came in the second paragraph. Did you know that people have to pay to go to prison? The gentleman in our story left prison with $50,000 in fines and fees. The story of his journey to finally be free of the debt is both bracing and inspiring. 

Now, of course I didn’t know that those imprisoned have to pay for things like phone calls to family and toothbrushes. I have never been to prison. I have never known anyone who has been to prison. The circumstances into which I was born have put me in a very different world. But that is the point of this week’s cover story. For those who have never known poverty, its compounding effects can be shocking. 

For much of the past 40 years, local governments have used fees and fines in an attempt to finance many aspects of local governance. And there can be a logic to that. Just as a turnpike asks the drivers who use it to pay tolls, a government can charge those who most use its services. Should a locality subsidize those who break the law?

Maybe. But local governments have gone well beyond this, doubling down on the use of fees and then essentially criminalizing the inability to pay them. The result is a financial and criminal vortex that sucks downward the very people trying to rise out of poverty. 

Take the fees in prisons as an example. A 2023 Sacramento Bee report found that toothpaste costs $4.45 at California State Prison Solano, compared with a market rate of $1.37. That’s a 200% markup for people in prison. Moreover, incarcerated people earn between 8 and 37 cents an hour, according to the report. That means a tube of toothpaste “could require 37% of an incarcerated person’s monthly income.”

This goes for court fees, tickets, you name it. The topic was the focus of a recent meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures. One Republican lawmaker from Kentucky said, “Many of us believe that the defendant should have skin in the game.” But he also acknowledged the need to consider other views. “If the data shows that [these approaches] don’t work, we should look at something else.”

That puts the issue where it belongs – as a matter of responsibility. 

Any sort of punishment is a question of responsibility. As the Kentucky lawmaker said, having “skin in the game” is recognizing the need for people to take responsibility for the many consequences of their actions. But local governments must also consider their responsibility. Is it responsible to weaponize fines and fees to try to cover budget shortfalls? Is it responsible for a community to make its poorest people pay the most, proportionally and emotionally?

As contributor Courtney E. Martin shows, there are balanced solutions, and cities are finding them. After all, responsibility works best when shared by all sides.