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It's absolutely grotesque to me. Florida charges their inmates $50/day as a "bed fee" that they must pay when they are released. If you were found guilty and s
by notaustinpowers 2y ago
It's absolutely grotesque to me.
Florida charges their inmates $50/day as a "bed fee" that they must pay when they are released. If you were found guilty and sentenced to 5 years in prison, but were released after 1 month because your charge was overturned, you still have to pay the fee for the full 5 years you would have been there.
It makes me ashamed to be an American.
- frob 2y agoFlorida is a special version of horrible when it comes to treatment of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. The citizens of Florida overwhelmingly voted to restore voting rights to people who had completed their sentence. Ron DeSantis and the Republicans modified the law to prevent people from voting if they hadn't paid all of their fees, which there is no central tracking or source of. They then went on to arrest Black citizens who tried to register to vote after their PO had told them they owed no money and were clear to vote.
- actionfromafar 2y ago[flagged]
- notaustinpowers 2y agoWho needs those pesky things like free and fair elections when you can just disenfranchise the competition!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- _heimdall 2y agoAlabama should be included on any list of states terrible to inmates. We still have jails and prisons without HVAC. I really don't care what you did, having to live in a metal and concrete box in the middle of an Alabama summer without basic air conditioning is absolutely torture in my book.
- arbuge 2y agoThis is a problem in Texas also, although my understanding is that they're working on it: https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/ac/index.html https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/ac/index.html
- anovikov 2y ago[flagged]
- JadeNB 2y ago> And well, this was done for a very simple reason: almost all criminals vote Democratic. Criminals deserve human rights as anyone else does, but, all the same, I think it's important not to buy into the framing imprisoned → criminal. (To be clear, these charges would still be wrong even if we lived in a world where only the guilty were imprisoned, but that's not our world.) I also doubt your statistic. Do you have a reference?
- dirtyhippiefree 2y agoUnsure why you used the word “statistic.” A numerical piece of information has to contain a number to be a statistic.
- JadeNB 2y agoI have no objection to calling "almost all criminals vote Democratic" a "claim" rather than a "statistic," although I'm not sure what it changes. I still doubt the claim, and, even if there is no pre-defined numeric threshold at which one can say precisely that one more criminal voting Democratic would mean "almost all" do, and one less would mean the contrary, then there are certainly quantitative data that could be judged to refute it—for example, if fewer than half do—or that could be judged to be evidence for it—or example, if 90% do. I think it is reasonable to ask for a reference to some confirmatory evidence for such a statement.
- ClarityJones 2y ago[flagged]
- actionfromafar 2y agoIf it’s illegal, how about not sending illegal invoices to people? Just an idea.
- ClarityJones 2y ago[flagged]
- actionfromafar 2y agoAre you a representative of my state and you recently incarcerated me?
- nativeit 2y agoThis does not include those who were not wrongfully convicted, but who did not serve out the entirety of their sentences, or who had been released without the state admitting wrongdoing. This appears to be more limited in scope than the parent comment’s underlying point.
- ClarityJones 2y ago[flagged]
- TylerE 2y agoNo it doesn't. "Wrongful conviction" is a term of art with a very specific meaning here. Likewise "fees".
- Maxatar 2y agonativeit says that it doesn't apply to those who were not wrongfully convicted, then an authoritative source is presented that clearly states that it does apply to those who were not wrongfully convicted, and your counterclaim is that "wrongfully convicted" is a term of art with a specific legal meaning? What on Earth???
- Terr_ 2y agoA lot of horrible state laws from the civic DNA of post-slavery "black codes".
- jimt1234 2y agoI love this ^^^ However, you forgot one particularly disgusting tidbit: the Supreme Court blessed Florida's poll tax, basically concluding that, even though it looks like a poll tax, it's really not, so it's all good.
- andrepd 2y agoDid not know what this was about so I googled it. What a disgusting and kafkaeske situation indeed.
- zeroonetwothree 2y agoTo be fair, before 2018 felons couldn’t vote at all. So it’s still an improvement compared to the previous situation.
- FpUser 2y ago>"If you were found guilty and sentenced to 5 years in prison, but were released after 1 month because your charge was overturned, you still have to pay the fee for the full 5 years you would have been there." This is totally disgusting. But I guess they need underclass of slaves. Fucking piece of trash.
- kyrra 2y agoI have not heard about that one before, and it's gross. It sounds like Illinois and New Hampshire had similar things with their prison system, but outlawed it into 2019. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/americas-dystopian-incarceration-system-pay-stay-behind-bars https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/amer...
- qingcharles 2y agoThe medical fees are the worst. Nobody seeks medical treatment because they can either spend the $15 on seeing a nurse to be told their cancer is simply a stomach ache (happened to a friend), or spend it to call their kids on the phone for maybe 20 mins that week. People hide all sorts of diseases and complaints until they are so sick they have to be forcibly removed -- this way you can avoid the fee.
- jahnu 2y agoUnbelievable! Is there no constitutional protection against that?
- mtalantikite 2y agoI mean they essentially allowed slavery to exist for prisoners with the 13th amendment [1] -- Americans seem to view the prison system as anything goes punishment instead of rehabilitation: [1] "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
- qingcharles 2y agoAlso allowed without conviction. Those in county jails who are unconvicted are allowed to be subject to small amounts of slavery the US Supreme Court has previously ruled.
- anigbrowl 2y agoThere is, courts just ignore it because administering justice is time-consuming and inconvenient. There are many examples of the judicial system choosing expediency over integrity.
- phyzix5761 2y agoIt's not just Florida. You pay the bed fees even if found not guilty. Seems like a very cruel and efficient way to ruin someone financially considering that the average wait time before their first court date is one month. So, you're looking at at least $1500 for a crime you didn't even commit.
- notaustinpowers 2y agoThat's the Land of the Free™ for ya!
- arccy 2y agoLand of the Fee
- gambiting 2y ago....how can this possibly be legal? It's not like you wanted to be there. I have a hard time seeing how it can be justified for someone who is guilty, but I absolutely can't comprehend how you could charge fees from someone who is found innocent.
- lisper 2y ago> ....how can this possibly be legal? Because most of the people this happens to are black. (And the rest are white trash.)
- rqtwteye 2y ago"white trash" Gotta love the fact that derogatory terms are generally not ok these days unless it's poor white people.
- kevinventullo 2y agoThe point is to vilify and “other” people with less money to distract from the reality of the situation: class warfare.
- FireBeyond 2y agoMy understanding is that in Florida, even if you are found not guilty or charges are dropped etc., you are still liable for the fees. Their argument is that you were still using a bed.
- actionfromafar 2y agoYou could have been using the bed. You still pay the full time if you are released early. Now, if they made the "bed fee" proportional to your net worth, that would be interesting. But that would be Communism, can't have that.
- criddell 2y agoAnd if you are released early, somebody else will probably get that bed and they too will be paying the fee. I bet they are double and triple collecting on a significant number of beds.
- noduerme 2y agoIt's a travesty. Even Marriotts don't take more than 50% when someone cancels their reservation.
- basementcat 2y agoOne problem with tying the fee to net worth is that wealthier individuals may be more likely to have their wealth in trusts so they may actually have "fewer assets" than a poorer person.
- anigbrowl 2y agoJust a definitional issue. If you are a beneficiary of a trust and can rely upon it, then it is effectively your wealth.
- Noumenon72 2y agoHaving to pay if you're released sounds like just an accident of bad law drafting, but I'm stunned that I have watched so many prisoner TikToks, read so many undercover guard articles, and never heard of pay-to-stay laws before. It's like every prison sentence comes with a crippling fine.
- ryandrake 2y agoHighly doubt it's an accident. The cruelty is the point: These voters/government deliberately make their laws as terrible as they legally can. They see the world as a hierarchy with in-groups and out-groups and see the law as a way to inflict cruelty on the out-groups.
- kenjackson 2y agoI had a recent colleague and we’d argue this exact law (and others). The takeaway I got is he generally believed the people impacted by the laws were bad. And even if they served their time there was basically no limit to what we should try to impose on them. Furthermore, even if they didn’t do the crime they probably did others so no remorse on other things that might seem unjust. He thought they deserved those things too.
- anigbrowl 2y agoShoulda offered to call in a false police report on him.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago> Highly doubt it's an accident. The cruelty is the point: Someone murders another, pleads down to manslaughter. Will spend 4 years in prison... but the cruelty is that after he gets out if somehow he manages to come up with money that the court system can even become aware of, we might make him pay for some of the $250,000 cost of keeping him in the cell? Or do you just mean the people who were wrongly held before evidence exonerated them? It's not cruelty there either, just revenue collection. Someone's gotta pay for it, and when the people who should be paying get to duck out because their only income is cash from street drug sales or fenced shoplifted goods and impossible to recover, I guess those people who can hold a job that direct deposits into a bank account are on the hook. God, I'm glad you don't review my code. Full of bugs because I'm in a hurry, don't understand the problem clearly enough, or the specifications were bad... "that's no accident, you're being cruel to the shareholders".
- SXX 2y agoOMG. I not from US and I never heard of this practice, but it's literally sounds like modern financial slavery.
- notaustinpowers 2y agoOur constitution allows slavery if you are imprisoned. So we already have literal modern garden-variety slavery.
- vidarh 2y agoHardly a day goes by that I don't wonder why there aren't persistent, ongoing riots in the US.
- saagarjha 2y agoRioting puts you in jail.
- vidarh 2y agoAt some point things get so bad that stops being a deterrent. Why the US population is so placid remains a mystery.
- rustcleaner 2y agoThe level of surveillance makes it impossible to form coherent organizational structures domestically which can effectively oppose this system, because your organizations' and family's financial, communication, and social lives can be mapped out for strategic legal attack by the very same players they wish to protest. This is the price of KYC & AML.
- vidarh 2y agoThis presumes an organized resistance. That's not what I was talking about. I'm surprised there aren't more regular reactions out of sheer anger, like the BLM riots.
- SkyBelow 2y agoPaying for the cost you caused society by being a criminal seems just as just as putting someone in prison to begin with. Obviously that means it should only apply to those guilty, not to anyone who has the charges overturned, and it also means the crimes need to be deserving of being crimes. I find it weird that people seem okay with the idea of imprisoning someone for X years, but fining them as well is going too far. Keeping the fined even after the conviction is overturned is an extra horrible case, comparable to keeping someone in prison even after the conviction is overturned, but that shouldn't be mixed with fines in general just like imprisoning someone after their conviction is overturned shouldn't be mixed with imprisoning someone who has a valid conviction.
- qingcharles 2y agoThese fines cause people to reoffend to get the money to pay them, as often these fines and fees cause you to be reincarcerated if no payment is made. Even without reoffending, it stops people reintegrating successfully as it is very hard to get a job after incarceration and people end up having to take cash jobs for way below minimum wage and live in slums just to try to pay off these debts.
- SkyBelow 2y ago>These fines cause people to reoffend to get the money to pay them, Sending them to prison causes them to reoffend as shown by the recidivism rate of people based on how long they are in prison, as they learn to be better criminals while not learning skills to fit back into society, and as imprisonment creates a life changing stigma which negative impacts their lives. Perhaps instead of criticizing fines, you should criticize imprisonment and even the act of convicting them that creates the stigma that makes gainful legal employment so hard to find.
- qingcharles 2y agoThe primary skills you use locked up are how to be sneaky, how to hide shit, how to detect camera zones. You couldn't get cheese at one institution unless you had a court date; they would give you a cheese sandwich at court. I would smuggle coffee out of the jail (through a full naked visual body cavity search) to trade for cheese sandwiches in the court holding pens, and then smuggle the cheese slices back in (through another full naked visual body cavity search). Those are excellent life skills. Thanks jail!
- ensignavenger 2y agoDo you have a citation for this? It sounds like a violation of multiple constitutional protections just waiting for a Supreme Court challenge.
- js2 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-to-stay_(imprisonment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-to-stay_(imprisonment) https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/americas-dystopian-incarceration-system-pay-stay-behind-bars https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/amer... https://www.npr.org/2022/03/04/1084452251/the-vast-majority-of-states-allow-people-to-be-charged-for-time-behind-bars https://www.npr.org/2022/03/04/1084452251/the-vast-majority-... https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investigates/pay-to-stay-florida-inmates-charged-for-prison-cells-long-after-incarceration https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investi... Etc.
- ensignavenger 2y agoNone of those articles state that they can charge the fee on an overturned sentence. The one states they can charge the fees on the full sentence even if you are paroled, which is dumb. But not on an overturned sentence.
- gymbeaux 2y ago[flagged]
- BobbyJo 2y agoI am, and believe I am (mostly) sane, empathetic, and relatively intelligent. Its fine if things aren't perfect. We're a country with a lot of very different people with very different beliefs. Things are going to go wrong, but they tend toward getting better with time.
- CivBase 2y agoI can be proud of my country and the good things it has done while also recognizing its failures - both past and present. Pride can be a good thing, so long as it is not from ignorance. Pride can create expectations which drive improvement. IMO one of the US's greatest issues right now is how much its own citizens either hate it or have given up on it. It's so much easier to white about The Other Side and how they're supposedly ruining the country than it is to enact meaningful change that we can be proud of.
- ssijak 2y agowait, what? how does that work? why are you charged at all for being sent to a place you have no choice in not going to?
- saomcomrad56 2y agohttps://www.yahoo.com/news/pay-stay-florida-inmates-charged-121419871.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/pay-stay-florida-inmates-charged-...
- saomcomrad56 2y agoMassachusetts has probabation fees. Something like $80 a month.
- Gormo 2y agoSounds like an eighth amendment violation.