Release Cards
All too often, prisons and jails partner with private companies to charge people released from custody for the privilege of accessing their own money. Until recently, when a facility wanted to return money to someone upon release — money that was in that person’s possession when arrested, money earned working in the facility, or money sent by friends and relatives — the facility would give cash or write a check. Now a growing number of prisons and jails are issuing pre-paid debit cards that eat up the meager balances with high fees.
We published a report on exploitative release cards and submitted it as a comment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, urging the Bureau to regulate this industry. We've also drafted model legislation that states can use to regulate release cards and protect consumers. See our work below:
Report and resources
Model reform legislation:
- Release card legislation for states
Our sample legislation bans release card fees and requires that incarcerated people be given the option to have their funds returned by cash or check.
Related articles:
Press coverage
- What Gate Money Can (And Cannot) Buy, by Mia Armstrong and Nicole Lewis, The Marshall Project, September 10, 2019
- Fees, fees and more fees: the high cost of being a Georgia prisoner, by Ashley Soriano, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 31, 2019
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Lawsuit reveals how tech companies profit off the prison-industrial complex, by Katie Rose Quandt, ThinkProgress, February 9, 2018
- The Financial Firm That Cornered the Market on Jails, by Arun Gupta, The Nation, August 1, 2015
- Menendez Joins Booker, Colleagues in Urging CFPB to Protect Formerly Incarcerated from Predatory Prison Prepaid Cards, November 3, 2015
- How private bankers cash in on released prisoners, by German Lopez, Vox, November 3, 2015
- Chase Bank Accused of Gouging Ex-Inmates, by Andrew Thompson, Courthouse News Service, September 14, 2015
- 'Release cards' turn inmates and their families into profit stream, by Amadou Diallo, Al Jazeera America, April 20, 2015
- Lack of choice on high-fee inmate debit cards draws widespread criticism, by Daniel Wagner, The Center for Public Integrity, March 25, 2015
- Inmates Charged Fee After Leaving Jail, by Herb Weisbaum, NBC News, March 24, 2015