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Captive Markets, Leah A. Plunkett
Captive Markets, Leah A. Plunkett
Law Faculty Scholarship
Today, inmates in county jails nationwide are billed for some or all of the costs of their room-and-board behind bars. Statutes authorizing counties to implement these “pay-to-stay” programs are on the books in roughly 70% of states, yet the financial mechanism on which these programs typically rely is not well understood. Although the pay-to-stay obligation bears some resemblance to familiar citizen-state financial transactions — such as fines and penalties, restitution, taxes, and fees — it in fact usually belongs to a distinct model that this Article calls the “government-imposed-loan.” This Article provides an overview of the landscape of pay-to-stay programs …