Youth pay-to-stay fees have got to go

This piece was originally published by the Fines and Fees Justice Center as part of Youth Justice Action Month 2026.

Of the many counterproductive and unfair financial sanctions used by the justice system, youth “pay-to-stay” fees, which require children and families to pay for their stays in detention or placement, are among the most egregious. 
 
In Ohio, courts are allowed to charge incarcerated children and their families for their costs of care, as well as costs of detention or placement in juvenile correctional facilities. Ohio statutes that are currently in place authorize courts to order youth to pay for their room and board and medical and dental treatment while in facilities. Additionally, courts are required to order that parents pay for the care, support, maintenance, education, and medical care of their children committed to facilities.  

Ohio families of justice-involved children face compounding stressors of family separation along with financial penalties in due part because many justice-involved youth come from families with low incomes. Pay-to-Stay fees worsen these strains and disproportionately impact families who can least afford to pay them. Across impacted families, pay-to-stay fees make it even harder to afford food, rent, and utilities. Because of systemic economic and legal disparities across race, Black youth experience both poverty and incarceration more than their peers.  
 
Ramon Terry’s experience as a Black, justice-involved youth illustrate how pay-to-stay fees deepen these disparities. Now 24, Ramon was arrested at 14, shortly after losing his mother. He spent four and a half years in confinement.  

In a recent interview, Ramon recalled how pay-to-stay fees made it harder to reenter life in his community after release: “It would be taking away from the stuff I needed as far as when I did come home, like clothes.” 

He also described the impact on his grandfather, who became his legal guardian after his mother passed. Ramon says the fees “put him…I’m not going to say behind on his bills, but like he had to pick up a part-time job” after having retired. 

As is often the case with financial penalties charged to young people and families, Ramon is still paying fines from his time in Ohio Department of Youth Services facilities, which ended in 2021. 

To support and strengthen families and communities alike — especially those that are disproportionately affected by poverty and youth incarceration — the state of Ohio must stop using financial penalties. Ohio should abolish all fees, including pay-to-stay for Ohio’s youth correctional facilities and prohibit the state and counties from charging cost-of-care, pay-to-stay, or any other fees to incarcerated children and parents.