Paying for your crimes - US prisons look for new revenue streams

By Frank Brandmaier Aug 11, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Washington - While senators and representatives have been grappling with the United States' debt limit, county authorities around the country are dealing with their own shaky budgets.

Polk county in Florida has decided to cut corners in a bid to shore up the miserable financial situation of its prison. Sheriff Grady Judd has decided to cut back spending by making inmates pay for their underwear. 'This is not a Hilton, it's not a welfare program,' said Judd in an interview for Fox News.

The move is estimated to save about 45,000 dollars a year. 'That's the equivalent of one job position that has been saved,' said Judd. Sheriff Judd is not alone: his colleagues the length and breadth of the country have been forced to make savings wherever they can.

Since the beginning of July newly convicted prison inmates in Butler, Ohio, even have to make a financial contribution to their incarceration. Upon arrival they are obliged to pay a 'reception fee' of 20 dollars. 'Any revenue stream out there is worth going after,' said Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer in an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer. The 'reception fee' has been paid in neighbouring Hamilton for some time already and according to estimates has resulted in an extra 200,000 dollars a year.

Ten years ago both Hamilton and Butler introduced a similar charge for non-convicted detainees but that was declared unconstitutional. As punishment both counties had to pay a refund of 1.2 million dollars. The strategy now is to only charge inmates who have been sentenced by a court. Prisoners have been paying 40 dollars per person since 2008. Authorities in the neighbouring county of Warren are considering whether to follow suit.

California's prisons are desperately overcrowded and the state's Republican Senator Tom Harman wanted to go one step further by charging prisoners 25 dollars per day of incarceration. 'All over the state people are making cutbacks but not in our prisons,' said Harman. 'Criminals get a place to live, health care, three big meals a day and can buy merchandise and other nice things at a discount.' But Harman's initiative failed to get approval from the responsible state legislature committee in April of last year.

With the prospect of the county of Summit in Ohio introducing 'reception fees' and a daily fee, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) decided to swing into action.

ACLU legal advisor James Hardiman described the proposals as 'antiquated ideas of the kind found in a Charles Dickens novel'. 'Not only are such penalties unfair and draconian, they also undermine security efforts,' he says. Hardiman argued that anyone who is released into society with hundreds of dollars in debt has a smaller chance of reintegrating back into society. The bureaucracy that must be created to collect the debts would also probably be more expensive than the income.

But proponents of the charges are not concerned by such opinions. Senator Harman based his proposal on a program from the county of Bristol in Massachusetts where the sheriff there, Thomas Hodgson, said he collected 700,000 dollars between 2002 and 2004. A lawsuit by inmates forced the program to be wound up. After the failure of Harman's initiative Sheriff Hodgson said 'it's another example of how law-abiding citizens are ignored.'

However, it appears Grady Judd in Florida is having more success for the moment at least. Inmates in his prison have a small range of underwear to choose from. 'They can have any colour they want as long as it's white,' he told Fox News. Anyone who declines to buy a pair can, in Judd's words, 'let the breeze blow up one leg and down the other.'