Miami-Dade County jails charge inmates $2 a day for room and board, a fee that鈥檚 rarely paid and creates a shadow economy behind bars that administrators want to eliminate.
Unpaid inmate accounts total $72 million over seven years, a measure of how rare it is for the county Corrections Department to actually collect a daily 鈥渟ubsistence鈥� fee from the largely low-income jail population of more than 5,000 people.
鈥淢ost of these folks can鈥檛 afford it. Some probably can,鈥� said Corrections Director Cassandra Jones told county commissioners Tuesday. 鈥淲e want it to be an even playing field for all ... We don鈥檛 want them engaged in negative behavior, figuring out how to circumvent the system.鈥�
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