In the counties of Hamilton and Butler Ohio, the sheriff’s departments tried to collect money from inmates to pay for the cost of their stay at jail. An all around failure, the program came to an end a few weeks ago after it cost taxpayers $69,000 to settle a federal lawsuit. The state auditor stopped the program because it wasn’t generating any income.

Despite this fact, these counties are currently talking about re-starting the program through collecting booking fees. Financial analysts remain skeptical. Even in the best case scenarios, the policy may not be lucrative at all as many prisoners that end up in jail have no money.

Lawsuits were the issue that first put an end to the program. An Ohio jail that was in the vicinity began charging booking fees for one hundred dollars and an additional $67.77 daily charge for every day held. But federal lawsuits against Hamilton and Butler counties started the end of “pay to stay” programs. The main issue at hand was determining who had to pay the fee.

Ohio legislation permits a county to charge people in jail for room and board, dental and medical treatment, property damage and a onetime booking fee. People in jail have to be billed at the end of their stay, but the key provision of the law is that convicted inmates only could be charged. The District Judge said that it was unconstitutional to take these fines from inmates who were not yet convicted.

Hamilton County was sued in 2000 and was ordered to refund about one million dollars in prison fees and to pay $150,000 for an educational program for prisoners. In 2001, Butler County was sued also. By 2003, the grand total of money that was returned to settle litigation was $63,846 to 2,431 inmates. Additionally, the county was told to pay a $5,000 donation to the Legal aid Society after officials did not add the agreed upon ten percent interest on refund checks.

Even though the plan to charge pay to stay fees to prisoners has failed, and has cost taxpayers more money than the program is worth, the Sheriff’s department still is considering measures to make more money from the jail. Charging booking fees, and taking in out of state prisoners are ideas that they are currently thinking about.

Mallory Megan is employed by a debt collection company. Also she composes articles on business and finance, consumer spending and collection agencies. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

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