Florida’s “pay to stay” law is one most people don’t know about. It allows the state to charge inmates $50 a day for their prison sentence months, even years beyond their release date.
Last month, former Republican State Senator Jeff Brandes, who recently founded a non-partisan think tank focusing on criminal justice reform, the Florida Policy Project, told the ABC Action News I-Team, “Listen, I was on the Criminal Justice Committee for years, chaired the Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee, I did not know this was the law.”
The financial burden is one that critics say makes it much harder for former inmates to become productive citizens.
“I want that person to buy property. I want that person to pay property taxes and ad valorem taxes and help pay for the schools and the roads,” Michael Graves, Public Defender for the Fifth Judicial Circuit, said.
Pay to stay: Florida inmates charged for prison cells long after incarceration
In April, the I-Team shared Shelby Hoffman’s story. She spent 10 months in prison on drug-related charges, but her original sentence was seven years. That’s significant because that is the timeframe when she was charged $50 a day: $127,750.