Prisons began levying the monthly fee Friday, even on prisoners who have no money.
By Associated Press
Published August 3, 2004
TALLAHASSEE - Prisoner rights advocates are criticizing the state for its new $4 monthly fee on inmates' spending accounts - a fee charged even if a prisoner has no money.
Hannah Floyd, wife of a death row inmate and leader of the Florida Death Row Advocacy Group, said the fee is unfair because it penalizes families and charities that contribute to inmate banking accounts. The fee, which prisons began collecting Friday, will generate $3.5-million annually for the state.
"The men are upset. Some of these guys are on a shoestring budget, trying to make it with close to nothing. If you have $10 a month to get by on and the state takes $4, your whole budget totally collapses," Floyd said Monday in an e-mail to the Associated Press.
All of the approximately 81,000 inmates at Florida's 56 prisons are required to have an account whether they shop at the canteen or have any money. Money gifts to them are deposited in the account as well as any money they might earn in prison industries. The inmates can use the accounts to buy toiletries, snacks and some clothing, such as athletic shoes, not provided by the Florida Department of Corrections.
Prisoners are prohibited from carrying money or receiving goods from outside the prison.
The fee was tacked on as a final paragraph of a bill dealing with the Correctional Privatization Commission and approved in a unanimous vote of the Legislature earlier this year.
State Rep. Fred Brummer, R-Apopka, who sponsored the provision calling for the automatic deduction from inmate accounts, said he did so at DOC's request so it could recoup what it spends maintaining the inmate accounts.
"It's like the same fee you and I pay for bank service charges," said Brummer, who serves on the powerful appropriation and rules committees.
Brummer doesn't buy the argument that the fee is unfair.
"I have a tough time being sympathetic to that issue. Taxpayers spend a lot of money to make sure they pay their debt to society," Brummer said.
Peter Siegel, an attorney with the Florida Justice Institute, said a lawsuit filed July 23 in Tallahassee challenges the fee because it was included in a bill containing more than one subject. The institute also regards the fee as unfair.
Inmates who do not have any money in their inmate accounts will still be charged $4 a month, said Sterling Ivey, a DOC spokesman. A lien will be placed on the account and inmates will have to pay the late fees before new money paid into the account can be used.
The department will not go after an inmate when he leaves prison for the amount of money he owes and it will not be deducted from the $100 given to inmates leaving prison. However, if an inmate returns to prison, his account will show the amount he previously owed.
