US legislators seek to make jailbirds pay for lodging
August 7, 2009
A one night stay? $90 (R710). Need to see a doctor? $10. Want toilet paper? Pay for it yourself.
In the search for extra income in desperate times, states across the US have a new idea: make inmates pay their debt to society not only in time, but in cold, hard cash.
In New York, politician James Tedisco introduced a bill that charges rich criminals $90 a day for room and board at state prisons.
Dubbed the Madoff Bill, the law is designed to ease the $1bn annual cost of jailing prisoners.
"This concept says if you can afford it, or some of it, you're going to help beleaguered taxpayers who play by the rules," Tedisco said.
In Iowa's Des Moines County, where officials faced a $1.7 million budget hole this year, politicians considered charging prisoners for toilet paper, at a savings of $2 300 a year. The idea was ultimately dropped, after much derision.
Prisons took big cuts recently when legislators cut state budgets. But trying to make prisoners pay to serve time is a wasted effort, advocates say.
"This is a dry well," said Elizabeth Alexander, the director of a national prison project. "They're not going to solve this (economic) problem by going down it."
Asked if she had heard about the proposal to charge inmates for toilet paper, Alexander laughed.
"I did not," she replied.
"That's a good metaphor for the whole effort." - AP
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