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Quoted from appended article ...
["Citizens like it," Lanteigne said. "The philosophy is to shift money away from the taxpayer and the general fund and increase user fees for everything from parks and recreation, planning, zoning and jails. I think as budget opportunities arise, more people are going to look at user fees."]
Guilty or INNOCENT, it's going to cost you if, for any reason, you should end up in the Fairfax slammer. And while these new go-to-jail fees may today be low ("a bargain", some will say), soon enough America's prison system will be fully privatized and who knows how high these incarceration fees will then go.
Before long, only the wealthy will be able to afford a night behind bars. Presumably the more you're willing to pay, the better treatment you'll receive. Some will go so far as to suggest that "citizens like it" as long as they think they're receiving fair value for their money. That is, after all, the forest-fee mantra -- so why should it not be the prison-fee mantra?
But what is to become of indigent prisoners, political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. What in the world will become of the fee-demo activist who as a matter of principle chooses not to pay forest recreation user-fees, refuses to pay the resulting fine for failing to pay those forest fees, is thrown in jail for not paying his court fees and then fails to, or simply can not afford to, pay his prison fees???
How long before we return to the days when it was common to tip your executioner? Are we perhaps almost there today???
Scott
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Fairfax Jail To Charge Its Inmates $1 a Day
Room-Board Payment Is Only One in Area
By Carol Morello - Washington Post Staff Writer
January 17, 2004
Inmates serving time in Fairfax County's jail will have to pay part of their debt to society in cold, hard cash.
Starting next week, prisoners in the Fairfax County Adult Detention
Center will be assessed a token fee of $1 a day for room and board.
Although the money represents a fraction of the $130 daily cost of
housing an inmate, the sheriff's department expects the fees to
contribute $200,000 to $300,000 a year to the county's budget, said Lt.
Tyler Corey, a spokesman for the sheriff's office.
With its policy, authorized under a new state law, Fairfax will become
the first jail in Northern Virginia and the only one in the Washington
area to charge inmates for their keep. Some Maryland county jails have
a sliding scale of fees for inmates on work-release programs but not
for the general population. The District does not charge inmates for
living expenses or the medical co-pays that are common in many jails,
said Darryl J. Madden, spokesman for the D.C. Department of Corrections.
In Fairfax, all inmates will be asked to pay the $1 daily fee,
regardless of whether they later are found not guilty. Computers will
pluck the money automatically from individual canteen accounts normally
used for sundries and snacks. Unpaid fees will not affect an inmate's
release date, and indigent prisoners will not be penalized. But a tab
will be maintained indefinitely so that anyone rearrested with money in
hand will have the amount due confiscated.
"If you're arrested with $50 in your pocket and a $30 balance owed,
we're going to take that $30," said Corey, who described some of the
inmates as peeved over the policy.
Numerous states allow county-run jails to charge prisoners user fees.
According to a 2002 survey by the American Corrections Association, 27
states charged prisoners for room and board, although most were limited
to convicted criminals earning wages in work-release programs.
Relatively few of the more than 3,000 counties in the United States
demand payment for a night behind bars, but the number is expected to
grow as local governments are throttled by financial constraints.
"It's another creative avenue to deal with budget cuts," said Laura E.
Noonan, president of corrections.com, a Web site dedicated to prison
industry issues.
Some critics say user fees are unfair and counterproductive.
"More than half our prisoners have not been convicted of anything,"
said Arthur Wallenstein, director of the Montgomery County Department
of Correction and Rehabilitation, where only work-release inmates are
charged anywhere from $5 to $25 a day, depending on their ability to
pay. "They're no different than the person who made bail living at home
waiting to go to trial."
Asking inmates to pay for jail stays, he said, would be akin to "charging them for being poor."
"Many in jail already owe everyone in town," he said. "They owe child
support -- that should always come first. They owe court costs on past
cases. Many owe restitution to victims of crime. Plus they're paying
rent for their family at home. I personally could not approve of a jail
fee largely for public relations when they have enormous
responsibilities already imposed by the legal system that are not being
paid."
Supporters of inmate fees say they help teach a lesson to lawbreakers, while offsetting taxpayer costs.
"It puts some responsibility on the inmates and relieves the taxpayer,"
said John Jones, executive director of the Virginia Sheriffs'
Association, which championed the 2003 bill authorizing the fees.
In the first six months after Virginia Beach began the $1-a-day charge
on inmates in July, the county collected more than $120,000, said
Sheriff Paul J. Lanteigne. In addition, anyone convicted of a traffic
offense or misdemeanor in Virginia Beach is fined $5 for court security
salaries and another $5 for officer training programs. People serving
on weekends are charged $9 a day. Those given electronic home monitors
are expected to pay the $12 a day cost to lease the equipment.
"Citizens like it," Lanteigne said. "The philosophy is to shift money
away from the taxpayer and the general fund and increase user fees for
everything from parks and recreation, planning, zoning and jails. I
think as budget opportunities arise, more people are going to look at
user fees."
William Sturgeon, an author who has visited dozens of jails while
researching books on youthful offenders, said such fees can help
introduce accountability into inmates' lives. But he laments the
tendency of cash-strapped counties to put the money into the general
fund instead of rehabilitative programs.
"If that money can go into a fund so the indigent inmate can get some
decent clothing when he gets out of jail and goes for a job interview,
I don't see anything wrong with it," he said. "But it's not a
moneymaker."
Indeed, some counties have stopped assessing the fees because the
administrative costs were higher than the money collected, said Ken
Kerle, author of "American Jails: Looking to the Future."
In Fairfax, where inmates were advised of the policy by in-house
televisions, the sheriff's department has the option of pursuing an
inmate with resources for an unpaid bill. But it does not anticipate
using collection agencies, Corey said.
"If there's a $10 balance left on the account, we're not going to go after someone," he said.
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- Privatization 
