Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Charging Florida's inmates $4 a month to keep a prison account is a cruel and petty way for lawmakers to make themselves look tough on crime.
In terms of heartless approaches to criminal justice, this hits a new low: The state is now charging inmates a monthly fee of $4 to maintain their spending accounts - a debt that accrues even if the inmate has a depleted account.
The policy was recently put in place by the Florida Department of Corrections after a push by the Legislature. This masterpiece of petty cruelty was sponsored by Rep. Fred Brummer, R-Apopka, who justifies the fees as no different from what average folks have to pay a bank. Except, of course, that average folks are not forced to pay for an account when they have no money, and average folks aren't behind bars with no alternatives. It is disingenuous to suggest that these fees are anything other than an attempt to make prison life even more miserable than it is.
No one ever lost votes in this state for promoting vengeful policies against state prisoners, but there should be limits. A policy that strips away the last amenities prisoners can look forward to also strips away hope.
In addition to charging inmates for snacks and certain clothing items, prisons currently don't supply them with such personal hygiene products as shampoo and deodorant. The only way for an inmate to possess those kinds of supplies is to purchase them through the commissary. But prisoners usually have to rely on relatives, friends and charities to contribute to their prison accounts. Inmates don't get paid for their daily work assignments in such places as the laundry room or kitchen. And while a small percentage of inmates have jobs through prison industries, the typical wage is only about 50 cents per hour.
If a relative scrapes together $10 per month, the prison now will take $4, or 40 percent. This punishes the family on the outside as much as the inmate inside.
A suit has been filed in Tallahassee challenging the legality of the fees on the grounds that the bill violated the single-subject rule. The measure was attached to a larger bill that dealt primarily with the Correctional Privatization Commission. But this idea should sink under the weight of its own gratuitous meanness.
The law vests quite a bit of discretion in DOC to set the rate of the fee. How about 10 cents? Sterling Ivey, a DOC spokesman, said the Legislature reduced the department's budget by $5-million, because that is how much revenue would be generated from a fee set at $6 - the law's limit. But in a $2-billion budget, the department could have figured out another way to make up the shortfall. The pittance of Florida's prisoners have should not be plundered just so legislators can crow about how tough they are.