The rates have been set: A bed at the Springfield Municipal Jail in Oregon is $60 a night. But the City Council’s decision Monday night to approve the fee did not come without a lengthy debate among the six-member board about whether the fee is fair, and whether the city can expect to collect enough from convicted inmates to break even for its efforts. This report from the Eugene Register-Guard.
Councilors’ approval, in a 4-2 vote, came with the caveat that they expect an update in six months on the fee’s effectiveness. “If this is something that within a certain period of time looks like it’s not working out … I see no point in wasting our time if it’s not cost-effective,” Mayor Sid Leiken said.
The 100-bed jail is expected to open in October, and initial estimates are that the inmate housing fees could provide $18,000 of the jail’s $2.5 million budget. But the ordinance will go into effect before the municipal jail’s opening, which means Springfield will soon begin charging inmates for part of the $109 a night the city pays for each of its five spots at the Lane County Jail …
Though he said he supports finding a way to charge inmates, Councilor Joe Pishioneri noted that many criminals are poor to begin with. “Are we squeezing blood out of a turnip?” asked Pishioneri, a special services deputy with the county jail. “We need to keep a very close eye on it to see if it is worth our while. “There’s a reason many institutions don’t charge the housing fee, because it’s just not worth it,” he said.
Lane County does not charge a jail fee, but Klamath and Douglas counties both have daily rates. Douglas County recently lowered its fee from $60 — the maximum charge allowed by state law — to $20 and is seeing better returns, jail administrators there have said.
Salt Lake County UT Sheriff Jim Winder will pitch a pay-to-stay program that would require wrongdoers to pay a portion of their room and board while incarcerated.
“People who commit crimes ought to pay for them,” Councilman Jim Bradley said. So the County Council will consider a six-month pilot program that will charge inmates $40 a day to bunk at the 2,000-bed Adult Detention Center in South Salt Lake. That’s about half the actual cost, now pegged at $82 a day. The policy would not apply to state and federal inmates. Nor would the jail pursue claims against “indigent” inmates. “Are we going to offset the jail budget with this program? No,” Sheriff Winder said. “But in cases where people can pay, they should” …
It’s not much compared with the half-million dollars the jail in Logan spends on food or the $6.1 million needed for its overall operation. But it’s money “the taxpayer doesn’t have to pay,” said Capt. Kim Cheshire, commander of the Cache County Jail. The idea is hardly groundbreaking. Jails have imposed similar rules elsewhere in Utah, including in Cache County. There, officials likely will collect up to $100,000 this year from a jail population of about 310 inmates …
Yet Winder’s proposal could run into resistance in Salt Lake County, where some council members fear the policy would prove too burdensome for inmates already strapped financially. Bill dodgers wouldn’t have to serve more time for not paying, but they could face collections. “My concern is that we will be sending people out the door with a bill that they cannot pay,” Councilwoman Jenny Wilson said. “These are people who are already down and out. It may just be too much.”
Time in prison is supposed to reform inmates. Tacking on a bill for certain medications or room and board, and the reform might go further. So goes the thinking behind some draft laws winding through the Georgia State Capitol this session.
House Bill (HB) 464 proposes charging state prisoners a co-pay on every prescription from the prison dispensary that treats a passing illness, such as a cold. The bill excludes drugs for chronic conditions or pregnancy. “It’s estimated that the cost of medication for our inmates this year will be in excess of $25 million. This is a way that they can pay a reasonable amount toward their healthcare,” bill author Rep. Barbara Massey Reece (D-Menlo) told a House State Institutions and Property Committee hearing. She expects the fee would be $5 per prescription, though that’s ultimately up to the people in charge at each institution. Any inmate with less than $10 in their account wouldn’t be charged.
It won’t do much for the prison budget, but it may teach a “civics lesson,” according to Alan Adams, division director for health services at the department. “The intent is for the inmates to shoulder some of the responsibility for their own healthcare, to make informed and adult decisions about when to access healthcare and when not to,” Adams testified to the committee, which approved the bill. Most cold medicines and the like are prescribed after a prisoner initiates a sick call and is taken to the prison doctor. That call is already subject to a $5 co-pay. “This will further discourage a malingerer or an inmate without a real problem from going to medical,” Adams said. The co-pay could net the Department of Corrections some $1.8 million a year, according to their own calculations …
The more radical bill is House Bill 295, which would impound prisoners’ property on the outside to pay their medical bills. It would also charge a $40 per Diem for a prison stay – $14,600 per year. The state’s average cost per prisoner per day was $46.27 as of March 2008. Right now, the bill language excludes prisoners who are ruled unable to pay by a judge.
Seeking ways to raise revenue, Philadelphia Prisons Commissioner Louis Giorla floated a proposal yesterday to charge criminals money to get in to city jails.
One previous study found Philadelphia inmates had an average of $35 on hand during the intake process, Giorla said. Acknowledging that many offenders wouldn’t be able to pay, he estimated the so-called admission fee would generate $300,000 a year …
[T]he admission-fee proposal [was] discussed during the second of three PhillyStat meetings that Mayor Nutter is holding to focus on the spending plans of specific city departments as his administration grapples with closing a $1 billion budget gap in the next five years.
Several months after it was eliminated by the state of Indiana, Porter County officials have come up with a plan to reintroduce a jail booking fee that has funded a successful drug and alcohol program for inmates. As reported by the NWTimes.
The proposal calls for again charging the $25 fee of everyone booked at the county jail, but returning the money to anyone found not guilty or whose charges are dismissed, County Attorney Gwenn Rinkenberger said … The state did away with the booking fee last summer on the grounds it was not fair, Porter County Commissioner Bob Harper said when the issue surfaced during a meeting in December … Rinkenberger said she disagrees with the state’s ability to eliminate the former version of the fee. She believes the county was within its rights to collect a fee to cover the cost of booking anyone at the jail, despite the outcome of cases.
The move left the county with a diminishing amount of money for the intensive outpatient treatment program provided for inmates by Porter-Starke Services … Until the revamped fee can be approved, the commissioners will dedicate $30,000 to $40,000 of county income tax revenue to keep the inmate treatment program alive, Harper said. The treatment program costs the county $120,000 a year, Porter County Sheriff David Lain said.
Inmates at the Des Moines County jail in Burlington IA may have to begin paying for toilet paper, according to the AP.
The county is facing a more than $1.7 million deficit in this year’s budget and the Board of Supervisors gave department heads the option of cutting costs or facing the possibility of unpaid furloughs or layoffs. The county also is moving forward with a $1 million bond issue later this month, leaving department directors to make up the balance. County Budget Director Cheryl McVey says billing inmates for toilet paper could save more than $2,300.
Aware of the economic crisis facing government at every level — federal, state and local — Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson is calling for legislation that will allow the Department of Corrections and all Sheriffs to adopt the $5-a-day cost of care fee that enjoyed such success while it was in effect from 2002 to 2004 in Bristol County … Sheriff Hodgson is suggesting a daily custodial care fee of $5, and a $5 fee for sick call visits, dental visits, a prescription eyeglasses fee and a $3 co-pay for prescription drugs.
Sheriff Hodgson gave an interview to a local TV station where he expanded on his plans.
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Syscon Justice Systems produces Corrections Reporter in order to collect and share stories of interest for the corrections community around the world, for national, state and county corrections facilities and for our own in-house corrections professionals. The articles do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Syscon Justice Systems.
The rates have been set: A bed at the Springfield Municipal Jail in Oregon is $60 a night. But the City Council’s decision Monday night to approve the fee did not come without a lengthy debate among the six-member board about whether the fee is fair, and whether the city can expect to collect enough from convicted inmates to break even for its efforts. This report from the Eugene Register-Guard.
Salt Lake County UT Sheriff Jim Winder will pitch a pay-to-stay program that would require wrongdoers to pay a portion of their room and board while incarcerated.
Time in prison is supposed to reform inmates. Tacking on a bill for certain medications or room and board, and the reform might go further. So goes the thinking behind 
Seeking ways to raise revenue, Philadelphia Prisons Commissioner Louis Giorla 
Several months after it was eliminated by the state of Indiana, Porter County officials have come up with a plan to reintroduce a jail booking fee that has funded a successful drug and alcohol program for inmates. 
Inmates at the Des Moines County jail in Burlington IA may have to begin paying for toilet paper, according to the AP.