Two decades after her release from prison, Teresa Beatty feels she is still being punished.
When her mother died two years ago, the state of Connecticut put a lien on the Stamford home she and her siblings inherited. It said she owed $83,762 to cover the cost of her 2 1/2 year imprisonment for drug crimes.
Now, she’s afraid she’ll have to sell her home of 51 years, where she lives with two adult children, a grandchild and her disabled brother.
“I’m about to be homeless,” said Beatty, 58, who in March became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the state law that charges prisoners $249 a day for the cost of their incarceration. “I just don’t think it’s right, because I feel I already paid my debt to society. I just don’t think it’s fair for me to be paying twice.”
All but two states have so-called “pay-to-stay” laws that make prisoners pay for their time behind bars, though not every state actually pursues people for the money. Supporters say the collections are a legitimate way for states to recoup millions of taxpayer dollars spent on prisons and jails.
...
Connecticut’s partial repeal went into effect July 1. The state is projected to collect about $5.5 million less per year from ex-prisoners because of the change.
State Sen. John Kissel, the top Republican on the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, said he opposed the repeal passed by the Democratic majority, but might support reforms like allowing inmates to pay off debt in installments.
Kissel said that while Beatty’s situation tugs at one’s heartstrings, “Everybody has issues.”
“The policy is to make one appreciate that your incarceration costs money,” he said. “The taxpayers footed the bill. They didn’t do anything wrong. And knowing that one has to pay the state back a reasonable sum on a regular basis is not a bad policy.”
Connecticut used to collect prison debt by attaching an automatic lien to every inmate, claiming half of any financial windfall they might receive for up to 20 years after they are released from prison, said Dan Barrett, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. That included things like insurance settlements, inheritances and lottery winnings.
The state even collected money awarded to inmates in lawsuits over alleged abuse by prison guards.
performing my daily ritual of being thankful i was not born in america
Every day I curse the British Empire for driving my family out of Ireland and into the US as I curse the US empire in which I am stuck.
All but two states have these laws??? Am I reading this right? Holy shit what the fuck. Now I'm going to be angry for the rest of the day
ITS FUCKING INSANE wtfff
that’s nearly 100,000 a year.
It’s so exceptionally cruel the death penalty would be a more humane sentence
Kissel said that while Beatty’s situation tugs at one’s heartstrings, “Everybody has issues.”
how about we give you an "issue" right between your fucking eyes
really spits in the face of the "three hots and a cot" narrative where chuds pretend prison is like socialism for convicts
It's more money than I'll ever make in a year, or probably three.
And of course, in the US if you don't pay some states apparently still have debtor's prisons like a fucking Dickens novel.
that's why if you go to prison you should eat as much pork as you can before hand
carbon
negative
porkeach helping offsets 1 lifetime of co2 emissions
All but two states have so-called “pay-to-stay” laws that make prisoners pay for their time behind bars, though not every state actually pursues people for the money. Supporters say the collections are a legitimate way for states to recoup millions of taxpayer dollars spent on prisons and jails.
:wtf-am-i-reading:
:warf-wtf:
:jesse-wtf:
They won't, prisons are a way to prop up the economy of a lit of dying regions.
Turning former prisoners into a permanent debt-saddled underclass is a feature, not a bug. Slavery is explicitly, word-for-word constitutional, you just have to put them in prison first.
i thought their way to "recoup millions of taxpayer dollars spent on prisons and jails" was to make the prisoners do slave labour
"It's not slave labor they're paid to do it"
And yet the penny an hour pay doesn't even cover these bullshit costs :soviet-hmm:
Uruguayans checkmate tankie
On a serious note, this is basically slavery where the slave even has to pay their master for the honour being their slave. I thought prisons were free to live in.
It's not just this. Phone calls are marked up far beyond the typical price per minute. Packaged food (read: food less likely to be heinously unfit for consumption) is the same, as well as toiletries the average person would consider to be essential. Depending on whatever crime you've been convicted of, you might be made to pay into a victim's fund. All of these charges suck up the slave wages inmates are paid for labor and move on to burden their family on the outside.
This is literally that ancap copypasta where the criminals pay the cop for arresting them holy shit what a parody of a country
The policy is to make one appreciate that your incarceration costs money,” he said. “The taxpayers footed the bill.
:no-mouth-must-scream:
