Nearly every state requires incarcerated individuals to pay for room, board and basic services under so-called “pay-to-stay” laws. In 2019, Illinois became one of the first to repeal such a law — a move that prompted Brittany Friedman , assistant professor of sociology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, to investigate what made that repeal possible.
Why it matters : Research shows that charging inmates for their time in prison worsens economic hardship in marginalized communities, hinders rehabilitation efforts and fails to offset incarceration costs to the state.
Key findings: The study found that the lawmakers used a pragmatic approach to reforming the state’s law.
What she said : “Illinois proves that meaningful reform is possible when both parties come together,” said Friedman, co-founder of the Captive Money Lab . “In today’s tough-on-crime climate, it’s particularly important to use both ethical and financial reasoning, supported by data, to advance criminal justice reform.”
The big picture: Pay-to-stay fees became law in Illinois with bipartisan support in 1981. By the mid-2010s, however, the state faced mounting criticism of expensive, tough-on-crime policies.
What they did : To understand what led a bipartisan majority of lawmakers to repeal the law, Friedman and a team of researchers analyzed Illinois state records, including legislative debates and statutes (1981–2019), and 160 lawsuits filed by the Illinois Attorney General’s office (1996–2015) against inmates and their families to recoup prison costs.
What they found: Researchers identified key factors fueling lawmakers’ push to repeal the measure.
Case in point: For at least one former inmate, the outcome was particularly devastating.
Going deeper: Interestingly, Friedman and her team discovered that lawmakers used the same arguments — ensuring public safety and promoting rehabilitation to reduce recidivism — to enact the law as they did to repeal it nearly 40 years later.
What’s next: Future research by Friedman and her collaborators will investigate why some states succeed in reforming punitive practices while others do not.
A forthcoming 50-state survey will explore the political and fiscal dynamics shaping reform efforts, with comparisons to cases like Connecticut, where the state partially repealed the policy in 2022
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