A jailer turns a lock at the Hamilton County Jail.Inmates released from Hamilton County’s workhouse might assume they’ve satisfied their debt to society with their incarceration.
Unfortunately, they’re wrong.
They soon learn they owe an accumulated daily “jail fee” that former County Mayor Claude Ramsey says was put in place to “recoup some of the cost of keeping prisoners who by their actions have landed” behind bars.
Hamilton County commissioners adopted a daily $8 fee applicable to workhouse (and some jail) inmates in 1983. It increased to $28 two years later, to $51 in 2008 and to $56 in 2011. (The state reimburses Hamilton County less per day for felons it houses.)
Mathematics explains the problem for ex-inmates. A three-month workhouse stay translates to over $5,000 in fees for misdemeanor convictions. An 11-month, 29-day sentence (the maximum workhouse misdemeanor penalty) tallies to more than $20,000.