Collatoral Damage

What is a holiday “gift” for a person behind bars?

For some families, “gift”-giving is not an isolated activity around the holidays or a birthday. It is a year-around commitment, a financial burden (usually shouldered by women) they can ill afford.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that the United States spends more than $80 billion each year to keep the U.S. prison population—the largest on the planet—behind bars. Many experts say that figure is a gross underestimate because it leaves out the many hidden costs that are often borne by prisoners and their loved ones. These costs rise during the holiday season, as families visit and call more, send more care packages.

The Prison Policy Initiative, an organization working to reduce mass incarceration, estimates that families spend $2.9 billion a year on commissary accounts and phone calls. I have written about both these issues here (commissary) and here (phone calls). Much inside our public prisons is privatized.

A New York Times article this Tuesday puts faces and personal stories to this issue.

There is Telita Hayes who adds nearly $200 to the commissary account for her ex-husband, incarcerated in the Louisiana State Penitentiary for the past 28 years. On top of the $2,161 she has put in his commissary account so far this year, Ms. Hayes has paid $3,586 in charges for talking to him on the phone when she cannot make the hour-long drive to the prison, and $419 for emails sent through the prison’s email system. Ms. Hayes said she spends an additional $200 on visits and phone calls around Christmastime.

Families are also often responsible for paying court fees, restitution and fines when a member goes to prison. According to a 2015 report by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the average family paid roughly $13,000 in fines and fees.

The Times story goes on to detail the trade-offs families (everyone mentioned in the story is a woman) make to financially support the incarcerated lives of loved ones. These women struggle to pay their own bills. They go into debt. One reported that her car was repossessed for nonpayment.

Since the 2008 recession, when state legislatures looked for ways to bring down the rising cost of incarceration, these hidden costs to families have been rising, sometimes astronomically. Hadar Aviram, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, quoted in the Times story says: “Public prisons are public only by name. These days, you pay for everything in prison.”

It is worth considering who we end up punishing when we sentence someone to prison. In war this is called “collateral damage.”