Very weird that I am so old and have literally never heard this mentioned in a TV show or book or movie or anything.

In four out of five states, if you go to prison, you are literally paying for the time you spend there.

As you can guess, this results in crippling debt as soon as you’re released.

The county gets back a fraction of what they hold over your head the rest of your life until you commit suicide(or die naturally and peacefully with the sword of damocles hanging over your head).

$20-$80 a day according to Rutgers.

Counties apparently sue people and employ wage garnishment to get back the money that majority of people obviously cannot pay back.

https://www.rutgers.edu/news/states-unfairly-burdening-incarcerated-people-pay-stay-fees

    • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      In particular, to force you back into crime, to be able to pay for that debt.

        • aodhsishaj@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Absolutely, I mean I’m already a felon, what’s one more barrier to credit and gainful employment?

          • olav@theweird.space
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            7 months ago

            @aodhsishaj @metaStatic bankruptcy is by far not the worse thing you can do. Often trying to unbury yourself will take longer to get back to solvency.

            We had to medical B out. Get cancer these days, particularly with a $6K+ deductible for a PPO and you’re toast. We managed to switch to a HMO before surgery and we were still toast. And I had a Good Job.

            File, get a pre-paid card then some high-interest you barely use, then some “normal” credit and it builds faster than you know

            • olav@theweird.space
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              7 months ago

              @aodhsishaj @metaStatic

              If you think bankruptcy is bad, look at all the rich people and corps that do it as often as possible

              Edit: I mean Herr Trumptard has filed no less than six times to avoid paying people

    • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I left America over a decade ago due to a laundry list of grievances that I developed while having only ever lived in America.

      Once I started living in other countries, I finally developed context to compare my American life with. And it just made things look so much worse than I had previously thought.

      And now it feels like not a day can go by without learning some new awful truth about my former home.

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    That’s the beauty of both ruling parties being 100% in support of the prison industrial complex. In fact, our current president even helped usher through the '94 Crime Bill, which keeps prisons nice and full for his golf buddies and institutional donors.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I vote third party.

        Choosing between a giant douche and a turd sandwich isn’t very appealing to me.

        Also, people like you pretending you didn’t need the votes of people like me is how we got Trump in the first place.

        • fukurthumz420@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          sure. hold humanity hostage because you can’t get exactly what you want, traitor. i’m not going to kiss your ass to vote for practical results. if you’re too blind to see what you’re doing, you can live with the consequences. i have a feeling you have a lot more time left on this planet than i do, junior.

  • elephantium@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I read the wiki page. Pretty barebones, but it did link to https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34705968

    In theory, I could entertain an argument about having criminals repay some of the costs of dealing with them, that’s not what’s going on here.

    The sum that is able to be collected doesn’t go straight into the county coffers, either - the jail contracts with a company

    The jail gets 30%, the company gets 70%.

    It really just looks like just another way to exploit prisoners for profit.