You’ve got two friends. They went to two different parties. Both of your friends had too much to drink. Both of them drove home. Both of them got stopped for driving drunk. Both were charged with DUI and found guilty. Both already had a previous DUI conviction. So both went to the Douglas County jail for five days, followed by probation. The friend who was tried in Lawrence Municipal Court? He has to pay $71 a day for jail costs. That’s $355. And the friend who was tried in Douglas County District Court? He has no jail costs. That’s because Douglas County Jail was built and paid for by Douglas County, and the city of Lawrence has to reimburse Douglas County for every day every prisoner convicted in municipal court spends in jail. Rather than write this expense into the city budget, the city expects the folks in jail to pay it.

But a lot of people in jail are seriously poor. Some are homeless and have no income. Some have minimum-wage jobs, but a minimum-wage job at 40 hours a week (and many minimum wage jobs are only part time) earns, after taxes, less than $250 a week. The law in this case is not applied equally to all. People convicted in Municipal Court bear a greater burden than people convicted in District Court. And the burden becomes even greater if, in the eyes of the court, they are unable to make a good faith effort to pay, because then they can get sent back to jail, incurring even greater costs.

Folks, a jail is not a hotel. A jail is a public responsibility, and the public should pay for it. Given the horrendous condition of the Kansas state budget, this may be the wrong time to suggest spending public money on anything. But the city of Lawrence in its great wisdom just spent $10.45 million to build a huge sports facility in the rich folks’ part of town. It should be able to come up with the money to pay for its share of maintaining the local jail.