The “Damaged” State vs. The “Willful” Nonpayer: Pay-to-Stay and the Social Construction of Damage, Harm, and Moral Responsibility in a Rent-Seeking Society

States increasingly look to incarcerated individuals as a source of revenue to alleviate the fiscal burden of incarceration, which results in suing prisoners for these costs. Through lawsuit complaints, states claim they have suffered damages and seek reimbursement from incarcerated individuals through pay-to-stay fees. Drawing from an original dataset consisting of 102 civil complaints from Illinois, we examine how the state constructs damage, harm, and willfulness through pay-to-stay lawsuits. We find that the state achieves this beneficial outcome by labeling incarcerated individuals as willful nonpayers and thereby morally responsible for what it terms damages suffered. Our empirical and theoretical contributions position civil lawsuits as part of imagining incarcerated individuals as fiscally responsible for their incarceration within a rent-seeking society, contextualizing the social linkages between willfulness, legal moralism, and perpetual indebtedness.