Very weird that I am so old and have literally never heard this mentioned in a TV show or book or movie or anything.
In four out of five states, if you go to prison, you are literally paying for the time you spend there.
As you can guess, this results in crippling debt as soon as you’re released.
The county gets back a fraction of what they hold over your head the rest of your life until you commit suicide(or die naturally and peacefully with the sword of damocles hanging over your head).
$20-$80 a day according to Rutgers.
Counties apparently sue people and employ wage garnishment to get back the money that majority of people obviously cannot pay back.
https://www.rutgers.edu/news/states-unfairly-burdening-incarcerated-people-pay-stay-fees
In Oz you get paid a small amount per day so you have some adjustment money when you get out
Oz is better.
Is the far right movement down there getting as bad as it is presented, or is that just the only thing newspapers talk about besides the wildfires?
Nah, we have what we call casual racism, but the real far right intense stuff is a vocal minority. I live in regional NSW and we have a growing immigrant population, largely from Asia and Africa. The colour difference between what was here 5 years ago and now is there if you care to look but honestly it is just people being people for the most part, nobody really seems to care. That said, our billionaires are a major issue and government capture seems inevitably unless major reform goes through.
Best of luck.
I was in and around Melbourne for a few months, and everyone I met seemed very cool, just people being people, so that’s good to hear.
Except, what shocked me over and over again as I traveled, was I always met someone who loved Trump.
Like I was staying with this hippie outside melbourne couchsurfing and he started talking about Trump and Q, and I had no idea what he was talking about at that point, and after I found out what conspiracy theories q was putting forth. I was so confused as to how this hippie wholeheartedly believed in things like pizzagate or the like.
Too much snoop smoke while browsing 4chan is my guess
I had a psychiatrist for my ADHD who went off the deep end on Q and Trump. It is entirely possible to get a high end degree without critical thinking skills, so seeing someone with at least 10 years of university, medical school, and specialisation in psychiatry going off the deep end is not impossible, just a bit odd to process.
That said, I think Australians tend to be a little more up front than North Americans, so when someone seems to just spew whatever they are thinking they seem more familiar. That said, someone spewing garbage should not be seen as normal but here we find ourselves I guess.