Your child’s been sent to jail. And then comes the bill.

Your child’s been sent to jail. And then comes the bill.

Philadelphia ends practice of billing parents for the time their children spend in detention

At the beginning of the month, in partnership with the Marshall Project, The Washington Post published on its front page an article about Philadelphia's practice of billing parents for the costs of their child's placement in juvenile detention. The city employed a private attorney, Steve Kaplan, who made more than any city employee (including the mayor!) to meet with parents and give them the bill. The theory behind this practice was that parents were asking the government to pick up the tab for their troubled kids and that if they were made financially responsible, they might be more inclined to remain involved. As Kaplan put it, "I mean, do we think the taxpayers should be supporting these bad kids?"

Nineteen state juvenile-justice agencies nationwide bill parents for their child's incarceration and in at least 28 other states, individual counties are also able to do so. California incarcerates more children than any other state, at a cost of $30 a night, but activists have been successful in getting the practices banned in three counties and two state senators have introduced a bill to ban the practice statewide.

The parents of approximately 730 detained children were being billed as much as $1,000 a month, but many could afford only the minimum payments of $5. In fiscal year 2016, the city spent $81,148,521 on all delinquent placements but recouped only $551,261. In 2014-15, a California county spent $250,938 in order to collect $419,830. The county ended up banning the practice outright and forgiving the debt of almost 3,000 families. Despite that, corrections administrators continue to insist that it keeps parents engaged and increases their buy-in. When parents fail to pay on time, the state can send collection agencies, add interest, garnish wages, seize bank accounts, intercept tax refunds, suspend driver's licenses or charge them with contempt of court.

The day after the article was published, the city of Philadelphia announced that they would end the practice of billing parents for their child's incarceration and the city's Department of Human Services announced that it would be ending its contract with Steve Kaplan and sought to distance itself from his comments. The city also announced that it would stop collecting debt from parents who currently owe the city money. Philadelphia will still continue to bill parents for the costs of foster care and "dependency" placements.

When I read the first article, I was at a loss. One mother, whose paycheck has been garnished by the city, reported that her child returned home institutionalized and aggressive. She wanted to know what she had paid for because it clearly wasn't rehabilitation (I found myself nodding). I am just not clear on how financially punishing a family is going to motivate them to do better. Charging them for their child's incarceration and hoping it will engage them in raising their child makes a judgmental assumption about the quality of their parenting while also doing nothing to address any of the underlying issues that likely led to the child's incarceration (poverty, poor education, systemic racism, etc.). In families that are struggling financially and must now cope with the absence of a child from their home, this additional financial penalty is just another burden, not a kick in the pants. And it does not seem that any locality has recouped enough to justify the practice. It is not working and it is only harming segments of the population, so naturally it's been preserved. That is Nixon/Reagan backwards logic.

I was so delighted to read that Philadelphia has chosen to end the practice. I hope that it will spur change in other Pennsylvania localities and across the country. And while it seems a victory that Steve Kaplan will not be retained by the city, the initial article indicated that he was likely going to be replaced by a collections agency when his contract ended. I guess the city of Philadelphia was just hoping for a PR win...