CITRUS COUNTY, Fla. — Florida's "pay to stay" law is one most people don't know about. It allows the state to charge inmates $50 a day for their prison sentence months, even years beyond their release date.
Last month, former Republican State Senator Jeff Brandes, who recently founded a non-partisan think tank focusing on criminal justice reform, the Florida Policy Project, told the ABC Action News I-Team, “Listen, I was on the Criminal Justice Committee for years, chaired the Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee, I did not know this was the law."
The financial burden is one that critics say makes it much harder for former inmates to become productive citizens.
"I want that person to buy property. I want that person to pay property taxes and ad valorem taxes and help pay for the schools and the roads," Michael Graves, Public Defender for the Fifth Judicial Circuit, said.
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In April, the I-Team shared Shelby Hoffman's story. She spent 10 months in prison on drug-related charges, but her original sentence was seven years. That's significant because that is the timeframe when she was charged $50 a day: $127,750.
Hoffman is expected to graduate with her Bachelor's degree in September. She wants to pursue a career helping people struggling with addiction like she once did. But the state says she must pay off her $100,000+ bill in order to qualify for an exemption that would allow her to enter the field.
“I literally felt like my entire past just punched me in the face," Hoffman said when she received the denial. “I have a family now, I have a daughter, a wonderful husband, I have a home, I have all of these accomplishments I have worked so hard, so hard to maintain. And to not be given the opportunity to have a realistic, reasonable, obtainable goal, to rectify all of that, that is why this is important.”
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After Hoffman shared her story, the I-Team heard from others in Citrus County and discovered that not all counties are applying the law in the same way, burying people in debt coming out of prison and impacting the communities they return to.
"That's just what they do there"
The I-Team met Samuel Gorman where he spends every Friday morning, The Bin Spot in Homosassa.
“I haven’t missed a week here in almost two and a half years," he said. "You can find anything here, from electronics and Apple products to shoes."
Gorman was searching for the best finds after a fresh restock of $6 items he can resell. For him, this isn't just about the thrill of a good deal. It's about supporting his family after coming out of prison.
“In almost one day, I made more than I was making at Denny’s," Gorman said.
Turning a profit, going to The Bin Spot makes sense to Gorman. But there's a part of his prison sentence that never did—incarceration costs that hang over him, he said. Gorman said he fears the other shoe could drop if or when the state were to come to collect the $50 a day he owes for a 2-year sentence ($40,500).
"It's tough when you don't know, you know, when they can just come in and take what they want," Gorman said. “I want to make sure that I'm not going to put my family in a situation where they're not getting the food or the rent they need.”
I-Team Series | Crisis in Corrections
Gorman contacted the I-Team after seeing Hoffman's story.
“To see somebody else with my situation was surprising," he said.
During his time at Okaloosa Correctional Institution for drug-related charges, Gorman struggled to find others with incarceration costs included as part of their sentence.
"Finally somebody else came up to me and was like, 'Hey, I got I heard you got those fees too.'" Gorman recalled. "He’s like, 'Oh, you must be from Citrus County...that's just what they do there.'”
Gorman said convicted felons have 60 days to appeal from the time they were sentenced.
"That doesn't make sense. I don't know how much time I was going to do," he said.
Gorman said he was also "double charged."
"I always thought that was kind of crazy, where I could be at work release, giving them a good portion of my check every week to stay there, which is supposed to be for the rent of being there, but then I'm also being charged from the get-go $50 a day," Gorman said.
He told the I-Team he and Hoffman were sentenced by the same judge, Judge Ric Howard.
Howard referred the I-Team to the state attorney's office. That's when the I-Team discovered, after reviewing court records for convicted felons in Hillsborough, Sarasota, Manatee, Hernando, and Marion counties and talking with state attorneys and public defenders, that even within the same judicial circuits, there are differences in how the law is being applied.
Though state law says, "...damages shall be based upon the length of the sentence imposed by the court at the time of sentencing", not everyone has incarceration costs noted when they are sentenced, like in Citrus County.
"It seems wrong," Gorman said.
"It doesn't work"
After watching the I-Team's reporting on Shelby Hoffman's case, Graves, the public defender for Citrus County, agreed to meet to talk about incarceration costs.
"It struck me as such an extreme example of the things we're talking about," Graves said. “What people don't hear about is the large number of people who get out of custody, finish their sentence, are committed to turning their life around. And that's what society wants. You go ask the community. They ought to be able to do this. Yet at the same time, we now have a law that keeps the governmental boot on the throat of that person that creates a cap or a limitation as to how far they can get."
The I-Team shared with Graves that over a 3-year period, Florida collected only roughly $80,000 across the entire state.
“It doesn’t work," Graves said. "I was surprised when I saw that in your reporting. I didn't know until then that it was that small a sum of money."
Graves said he questions why someone in Tallahassee doesn't want to fix the law.
“What good are we doing? Maybe we ought to raise a flag and say, uncle, this one didn't work," he said.
Gorman said his main focus is having a shot to make a future for his son.
“You’ve got to give people a chance to come out and be right," Gorman said.
If this is an issue you want your lawmaker to look into, here's how you can contact your state legislators:
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