cept was slow to gain widespread acceptance, and, by 1980, such programs were in place in a total of only 10 states. The Reagan era, however, prompted many states to reconsider the concept, and, by the end of the second Reagan term in office, a total of 26 states had adopted programs to charge convicted persons for a part of the cost of administering their corrections programs.
Motivation for the Imposition of User Fees
The coalescing of a variety of societal and economic factors in the late-1970s and early-1980s led to demands for changes in the way in which public services are delivered and funded. Whether or not true, there were widespread public perceptions that the delivery of services by public organizations was inefficient, and that the persons receiving the benefits of public services were not, in many instances, the persons who were funding such services. Certainly, this latter perception was applicable to all services delivered to persons incarcerated by the state.
State and local governments, already fiscally pinched by reduced tax revenues were hit further with federal revenue sharing reductions. One response by many state and local governments was the imposition of fee-for-services policies. A fee-for-service policy is a form of tax shifting. Tax shifting is a procedure whereby the burden of taxation is shifted from the entity on which the tax is being applied to another entity. As an example, a tax levied on a manufacturer of a product will, in most instances, be shifted forward by the manufacturer to the consumer of the product. Tax elasticity determines, in general, the extent to which a tax burden may be shifted from producer to consumer. In the instance of requiring convicted persons to pay a part of the costs of the administration of their corrections programs, the tax shift is away from all taxpayers who contribute to governmental general revenue funds to convicted individuals receiving c...