Prison debt is crushing Black women, advocates say

The big picture: When incarcerated individuals can't pay — and most can't — the debt is passed to a loved one or follows them after release.

• In some states, advocates say that debt collectors or probation officers send letters demanding full repayment within 30 days.
• And taxpayers can wind up footing the bill for costly legal pursuits that don't result in payments.

By the numbers: Data collected by the advocacy group Campaign Zero, reviewed by Axios earlier this month, shows:

• As of December 2024, 48 states allow at least one "pay-to-stay" fee.
• 42 states and D.C. permit room and board charges for incarcerated adults.
• 43 states permit medical fees for incarcerated adults.

Zoom in: Fees are automatically pulled from prison accounts or wages. But most incarcerated people earn less than $1/day, according to data from the Prison Policy Initiative, so balances grow — and carry into life after release.

• Because many incarcerated people can't fully pay fees while in prison, the costs often pile up as debt they're still expected to repay after their release, Campaign Zero executive director DeRay Mckesson told Axios.

Zoom out: Research compiled by the advocacy group Fines and Fees Justice Center (FFJC) shows that women — especially Black women — are disproportionately harmed by these policies.

• 83% of those paying fines, fees, and bail for incarcerated people are women, according to a national survey.
• Women's wages drop more post-conviction than men's — $75/year vs. $26.
• Black mothers are three times more likely than white mothers to be their family's sole provider.

What they're saying: "We were the first to put this issue on the map — people were talking about mass incarceration, but no one was talking about families having their college funds and inheritances seized," said Brittany Friedman, a USC sociologist who leads the Captive Money Lab and was a consultant on the Campaign Zero project.

• Friedman said her team analyzed hundreds of civil lawsuits and found a "repeat pattern" of states seizing jointly held assets — including college savings and shared inheritances — if an incarcerated person's name was on the account.
• "In most cases, it drains the account completely," she said, noting the court will seize any account with the incarcerated person's name on it — even if it's a college fund or a shared inheritance.

Context: Many pay-to-stay laws date back to the 1970s, as states such as Michigan and California sought to shift the costs of incarceration off public budgets.

• The trend grew in the 1980s, after federal funding cuts under President Reagan, as states began charging incarcerated people for court-appointed counsel, supervision, meals and phone calls.

Instead of taxing the public, lawmakers began extracting money from the people being policed and prosecuted, in the form of fees for public defenders, probation supervision, phone calls, and even meals.

• "They weren't designed to promote safety or rehabilitation," said Nick Shepack, Nevada director for the FFJC. "They were designed to cut budgets — and they still are."

Yes, but: Some states argue that these fees help cover the costs of victim restitution or public services. But many are imposed even in victimless cases like drug possession.

• Friedman said in Illinois, her team found the policy often cost more to enforce than it brought in — due to labor-intensive forensic accounting, lawsuits and appeals.

The intrigue: Several states are moving to roll back these fees.

• Oklahoma recently passed a sweeping bill eliminating many fees.
• Maryland Gov. Wes Moore waived $13 million in unpaid probation fees earlier this year.
• Nevada capped the amount that prisons can garnish from family deposits and ended post-release collections of medical debt.

What we're watching: A forthcoming FFJC report, Imposing Instability, will argue that most of this debt is never collected — and that collection costs often exceed any financial gain.