To stay, you must pay

VILLAGE OF STRYKER, Ohio - Community Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio officials are moving ahead with a pay-for-stay program.

Under the program, an inmate will be presented with a bill right before they are released.

Though the Pay-for-Stay initiative isn't a new concept, Lucas County has been doing it since 1998. It is new concept to CCNO.

Inmates housed there from Lucas, Henry, Defiance, and Fulton counties, along with the city of Toledo, will be charged a $100 booking fee as soon as they enter the system.

"That's the cost of being booked in, being fingerprinted, getting their health assessment, their suicide assessment, their mental health assessment," said Jim Davis, CCNO's executive director.

After that, the prisoners will be charged a $67 fee for their stay at CCNO.

"When someone is determined they can pay and they're not paying then they'll be taken to local municipal court," Davis said. "They'll be ordered to pay if they refuse to. Otherwise, it can be done through garnishing wages. It can be done through a payment program."

Davis added he knows that realistically his staff will probably only collect 5 to 10 percent of the pay-for-stay charges that are billed, but every little bit will help.

"We think this is timely because the economy is the way it is," he said. "We think we have a fair number of offenders that can pay a portion of their incarceration."

"They committed a crime, and we want to make sure they are held accountable to society's rules. Society in this hard economic time is tired of paying the full cost on incarceration. They would like to see offenders pay a portion of that cost."