So if you went to prison for 7 years, and your conviction wasn’t overturned but you served your time, it’s somehow ok for the government to send you a bill for $50 * 365 * 7 = $127750? When convicted felons usually struggle to find better than minimum wage jobs due to their records? What a perversion of “justice”. And if you get out early for good behavior or due to prison overcrowding (again, your sentence was valid) you still get charged for the full 7 years? How is that morally reasonable?
No it is theft, also I think it's like this because the state needs criminals to justify its standing army and policing powers. If it's this hard to do well, kneecapping someone only makes it more likely they will betray society instead of rejoining it. No criminals means no need for police or SWAT or overreaching crime fighting powers or overbearing surveillance. The State is a higher order organism which needs criminals to justify itself.
How is that morally reasonable? I think it depends on whether the court was aware of this and considered it during sentencing. If someone served 7 years for a major corruption charge, paid $1.5 Million in restitution, and $250k in fines, then I think $127k in fees might be perfectly reasonable.
If someone served 7 years on a drug charge, the part that I would find morally reprehensible would probably be the incarceration. In my mind 7 years of prison is a lot worse than the $127k.
I am not a bankruptcy (or criminal) lawyer, but it may also be dischargeable in bankruptcy. What I see online says "punitive" charges are not dischargeable, but "reimbursement" based charges are and this seems related to reimbursing the state for the cost of the bed.
