David Mahoney owes US $ 21,000 (about US $ 80,000). But it's not because of the credit card or university funding.
He amassed a huge debt on the days he spent in a prison of Marion in the state of Ohio (USA), a small town facing a high of heroin dependency cases. The state, as well as various locations in the United States, charges its prisoners a fee known as "pay to stay".
He had to pay $ 50 (R $ 190) a day in prison, plus a booking fee of $ 100 ($ 380 RS). It was almost the schema of a hotel.
Mahoney, 41, has struggled with addiction since his teens - sometimes stealing to buy drugs. He was caught several times, including assaulting the same bar a second time.
Today it has been sober for 14 months and lives and works in Arnita Pittman Community Recovery Center, a halfway house in the northern city. His tutor says he is going "very well" and hopes that one day he will become a director of the house.
But it still suffers from debts. In addition to the charge for the stay in prison, you also must pay restitution to victims who stole and administrative costs of justice.
"Obviously the situation I'm in is my fault. I'm trying to start over," he says. "But people who end up in prison are typically already in trouble. They are going through trial and suffering. Why focus on people who are already in trouble?"
study
He is not alone. One of his neighbors in the halfway house is about $ 22,000. A third of the residents should further: US $ 35,000. They heard of a man in town who owes $ 50,000 - which is confirmed by the halfway house.
"They are charging me," says Brian Reed, the man with a $ 35,000 account. "I'm hopeless."
Even the county sheriff, Tim Bailey, who supports the charges, was surprised to learn the value that the debts had reached.
"Wow, that's a scandal," he told BBC.
In the US, it is estimated that there is a debt of $ 10 billion with the Justice contracted by about 10 million men and women who were passing by the criminal justice system. It is a debt that is not well studied - or understood.
On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU, which stands for the American Civil Liberties Union, an NGO committed to the defense of individual rights and freedoms) of Ohio, released the first major study that examines specific policies of "pay to stay" and how they are used in the States.
Charge transfer
After requesting records of all arrests of 75 cities and counties of Ohio, the study found that 40 charge fees per day of stay.
The place where you are arrested and imprisoned can make a big difference in how they are imposed - they affect more rural counties and suburbs, and range from $ 1 to $ 66 per day. The study found ex-cons with debts of up to $ 35,000 (about US $ 133,000).
"Some say that this debt affects your credit and prevents them from doing different things," says Mike Brickner, senior director of the group policies.
According to Lauren Brooke-Eisen, senior adviser of the Brennan Center for Justice program, the School of Law of the University of New York, this type of fee is legal in most American states - except in Washington DC and Hawaii.
His group working on a project to show what are the profits and costs that the country, but at the moment the practice is still not well studied.
"There is a transfer of the burden for the poorest members of our society in the justice system. If they can not pay, members of his family pay," she says.
After protests denouncing police violence against blacks in Ferguson (in Missouri), it was revealed that courts across the country were using law enforcement to generate revenue for local government. Brickner says policies 'pay to stay' are just one example of how to try to raise money from poor people in the criminal justice system.
"These policies do not work. People are coming out of prison with debts of hundreds of thousands of dollars and if you are an ex-con, this is more a burden," he says.
"It's a program that can make people with a tough mentality on crime feel good, but it's a fruitless practice."
Dale Osborne, prison administrator that Mahoney was defends the rate with the same argument used since it was legalized in Ohio in the mid-1990s.
"She pays the expenses of taxpayers. The more money I generate in one unit, less the taxpayer must pay."
But he admits that the program collects each year, only about 3% (from $ 60,000 to $ 70,000) of US $ 2 million collected from former inmates in the period.
"If we can no longer charge the fee here, I have no big headache for it," he says.
The amount that is collected is not going straight into the coffers of the county. The prison has a contract with the company Intellitech Corporation, which acts as a collection agent, sending letters and making phones for older inmates.
Every time someone pay or negotiate a debt, 30% of the amount goes to the county and 70% for the company.
According to company president John Jacobs, the Intellitech have collection programs in 12 counties in Ohio and in six other states.
"It's something we will continue to do, because we believe that," he says, calling the program "a victory for the taxpayer and for the sheriff."
collection
Other state jurisdictions choose to implement charges on their own. The Macomb County, Michigan, is one of the oldest programs in the past and said it had collected $ 18 million in 26 years.
But Sheriff Tony Wickersham says the collection has fallen since 2009. In the last three years, they have raised only $ 240,000 a year with two employees dedicated to that. The cost of maintaining the program is pretty much the same as he collects, he says.
Many guests with similar results or that operate the program in red abandoned the practice. Others say that even small amounts collected are worth the effort. The County of Dakota, Minnesota, uses the money raised in the ex-convicts assistance programs.
"Our goal is to reduce recidivism. If we could use that money to not see them again, was worth," the sheriff Joe Leko.
In 2005, a study of 224 prisons in the country found that there was no consensus regarding the practice: prison administrators classified both as "the most efficient" and as a "less effective".
Also varies the policy adopted by the counties to deal with huge debts. Many in debt described in the survey by the ACLU, the "collectors as aggressive and said that they threatened to report them to credit bureaus," Brickner said.
In Michigan, the county site of Macomb says: "We process about 1,200 cases a year already confiscated wages, bank accounts and tax refund Already charge in the form of properties (collect cars, boats, style houses trailer etc.)... " Wickersham says they just go after the money where the ex-convict got a job after release.
Brickner, ACLU argues that the practice is essentially wrong.
"We are in a situation where we want to see reform in our criminal justice system," he says. "I hope that, through the data and these stories, people will see that it is a policy that just does not work," he says.
Both Mahoney as Reed say their families helped with debt, but now do not. Mahoney is focusing on paying off school debt in order to go back to school and finish their technological progress.
He says he has high hopes he can repay the debt from prison but expects the practice to be stopped....
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