Miami-Dade jails charge $2 a day for room and board. Few pay: Inmates owe $72 million
Miami-Dade County jails charge inmates $2 a day for room and board, a fee that’s rarely paid and creates a shadow economy behind bars that administrators want to eliminate.
Unpaid inmate accounts total $72 million over seven years, a measure of how rare it is for the county Corrections Department to actually collect a daily “subsistence” fee from the largely low-income jail population of more than 5,000 people.
“Most of these folks can’t afford it. Some probably can,” Corrections Director Cassandra Jones told county commissioners Tuesday. “We want it to be an even playing field for all. ... We don’t want them engaged in negative behavior, figuring out how to circumvent the system.”
Inmates with negative balances on their jail accounts can’t buy their own drinks, snacks and other goods for sale from the commissary. The result, according to jail administrators: side deals, bartering and other shadow payments to the fewer than 20% of inmates with positive balances.
That’s led to a push by jail administrators to drop the fees altogether, giving up about $1 million in revenue to undo a two-tier jailhouse economy where only a few have spending power.
The board approved a resolution by Commissioner Sally Heyman instructing the administration of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to produce a report on eliminating the fee, in place since 1997.
Miami-Dade can’t compel inmates to pay, and, after draining whatever cash someone held when booked, sends the unpaid amounts to collection agencies after a person’s release.
While negative balances prevent inmates from purchasing commissary goods, they can still receive extra food, drinks and supplies paid for by family and friends in separate accounts.
The daily subsistence fees account for a tiny fraction of the roughly $400 million it costs to run the county’s Corrections Department each year, even before accounting for staff time needed to collect it. The resolution approved by commissioners on Tuesday calls for keeping the one-time $25 entry fee charged inmates in place.
Unlike state prisons, most inmates in local jails are awaiting trial or sentencing. Commissioner Kionne McGhee called the debts caused by the $2 fees another example of jail time hurting low-income people more, since they often don’t have the means to post bond and leave incarceration while awaiting trial. Their unpaid jail balances follow them, showing up on credit reports, McGhee said.
“We’re talking about those who cannot afford the bond, who are now stuck in the jail,” he said. “We’re putting them on a roller-coaster ride to nowhere and to poverty.”
This story was originally published May 4, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Miami-Dade jails charge $2 a day for room and board. Few pay: Inmates owe $72 million."