Why does jurgis get out of jail right away?

When the time for Jurgis’s to be released from prison, he has to work in the prison an extra three days to pay off his court costs. When he is released, he wanders out of the prison in the cold and snow and is immediately frozen to the bone because his fertilizer clothes are so thin. When he had been in jail he had gotten enough to eat and had been warm, but he does not remember this because he is consumed with “fear and grief” and wants only to go home and save his family.