Paid a stipend to not commit a crime.

[Belsnickel]

(02-03-2016, 03:48 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Meals and healthcare and clothing.  I'm assuming they have healthcare staff in jails in prisons, so really only medicine unless something big comes up.   One inmate isn't changing the number of guards.

But the number of healthcare staff and guards is going to be directly proportional to the number of inmates. Therefore, the cost for guards and healthcare staff can also be divided among inmates.

I could go even further into other things because even utilities and maintenance are counted into the cost per inmate in most cases, but there is no general way to truly divide that up as it is not necessarily directly proportional like the other things are.

Edit: I see what you're saying, that the single person wouldn't increase costs that much. I can concede that, however we can use these costs to determine whether things like this are a less expensive alternative to incarceration, especially if the program is more widely implemented.

[Brownshoe]

(02-03-2016, 04:01 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: But the number of healthcare staff and guards is going to be directly proportional to the number of inmates. Therefore, the cost for guards and healthcare staff can also be divided among inmates.

I could go even further into other things because even utilities and maintenance are counted into the cost per inmate in most cases, but there is no general way to truly divide that up as it is not necessarily directly proportional like the other things are.

Edit: I see what you're saying, that the single person wouldn't increase costs that much. I can concede that, however we can use these costs to determine whether things like this are a less expensive alternative to incarceration, especially if the program is more widely implemented.

The number of healthcare staff and guards are not as proportional to the number of inmates in the prison as you would think. When I worked at Lebanon Correctional there were 2 CO's per block, and it didn't change depending on how many inmates there are in that block. There would be ~200 inmates per block, and only 2 CO's, and that's in a closed security prison. In the "camp" there is very few inmates per block (the camp is for the minimum security inmates who do the yard work outside of the fences, work on the farm, and other things), and there is still 2 CO's per block (and there's about 200 inmates in the whole camp). The same goes for the healthcare staff in the infirmary.

Now obviously smaller prisons with less blocks will have less CO's, but I will guarantee you that there will only be the bare minimum of staff.

But all in all it costs around $50 a day to have just one inmate in prison.

[Belsnickel]

(02-03-2016, 06:17 PM)Brownshoe Wrote: The number of healthcare staff and guards are not as proportional to the number of inmates in the prison as you would think. When I worked at Lebanon Correctional there were 2 CO's per block, and it didn't change depending on how many inmates there are in that block. There would be ~200 inmates per block, and only 2 CO's, and that's in a closed security prison. In the "camp" there is very few inmates per block (the camp is for the minimum security inmates who do the yard work outside of the fences, work on the farm, and other things), and there is still 2 CO's per block (and there's about 200 inmates in the whole camp). The same goes for the healthcare staff in the infirmary.

Now obviously smaller prisons with less blocks will have less CO's, but I will guarantee you that there will only be the bare minimum of staff.

But all in all it costs around $50 a day to have just one inmate in prison.

You just confirmed it is proportional, though. The number of inmates in the population will determine the number of blocks with inmates in them, yes?

Also, at $50 a day per inmate, even the high end number given for California's program would be less than half the cost of incarcerating the person.

[Brownshoe]

(02-03-2016, 06:19 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: You just confirmed it is proportional, though. The number of inmates in the population will determine the number of blocks with inmates in them, yes?

No, there is always the same amount of blocks no matter how many inmates are in the prison. There could be 1,000 inmates in the whole prison and there will be the same amount of staff, but when the prison is full to the brim (around 2,500 inmates if I remember correctly) there would be the same number of staff working there. It's really more dependent on the size of the building (which is generally always overcrowded like pretty much every prison in America).

[Belsnickel]

(02-03-2016, 06:21 PM)Brownshoe Wrote: No, there is always the same amount of blocks no matter how many inmates are in the prison. There could be 1,000 inmates in the whole prison and there will be the same amount of staff, but when the prison is full to the brim (around 2,500 inmates if I remember correctly) there would be the same number of staff working there. It's really more dependent on the size of the building (which is generally always overcrowded like pretty much every prison in America).

That is inefficient. Though I know there aren't any prisons out there with a small enough number to have empty blocks, anyway, so it isn't a big deal, but still.

[Brownshoe]

(02-03-2016, 06:46 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: That is inefficient. Though I know there aren't any prisons out there with a small enough number to have empty blocks, anyway, so it isn't a big deal, but still.

The thing is... The amount of staff that they have should be more. Just think about it. In a prison that holds 2500 inmates they have about ~40 COs on duty inside the prison. There is a lot of staff that is non-security (like teachers, nurses, mental health, admin, ect, ect). The amount of staff they should actually have should be more a lot more.

[StLucieBengal]

Don't they charge these inmates daily to be in there? Then they use the non payment as a way to bring them back when they can't pay the bill upon release.

If they are charging them costs should be negated. Unless they are using book keeping tricks to show they are taking in money.

[Benton]

(02-03-2016, 02:16 PM)StLucieBengal Wrote: I think it's sad that you need counseling to be told to not commit crimes .    Do they also need couseling to make sure they breathe?  

It's painful that we have people who are this stupid.

As far as it working......  I should hope it's working considering we are making it some degenerates job to not commit crimes.    

Look at me following laws for free like a sucker.

it stinks, but yeah, the problem essentially is there's a large population of people who live under the idea that going to jail is just a part of life. It's part of why we have a crime problem. A friend of mine retired from being a judge earlier this year. His main reason? He couldn't take third generation offenders, guys who were grandkids of men he sentenced decades ago.

I don't know if this fixes that, but something needs to be done to fill the role model aspect. Bigger sentences hasn't worked.

[StLucieBengal]

(02-03-2016, 08:17 PM)Benton Wrote: it stinks, but yeah, the problem essentially is there's a large population of people who live under the idea that going to jail is just a part of life. It's part of why we have a crime problem. A friend of mine retired from being a judge earlier this year. His main reason? He couldn't take third generation offenders, guys who were grandkids of men he sentenced decades ago.

I don't know if this fixes that, but something needs to be done to fill the role model aspect. Bigger sentences hasn't worked.

I am with you on something needs to be done. But how about reforms on how we sentence.. Instead of treating them like a bunch of morons.

[Brownshoe]

(02-03-2016, 07:46 PM)StLucieBengal Wrote: Don't they charge these inmates daily to be in there?     Then they use the non payment as a way to bring them back when they can't pay the bill upon release.  

If they are charging them costs should be negated.    Unless they are using book keeping tricks to show they are taking in money.

lol how can the state / feds charge the inmates? They don't make any money, and if they do have money on their books the commissary is crazy expensive. It's not like they're in there with AC.  They get a bar of soap (every few weeks), 3 changes of clothes, a cot, a pair of boots, and 3 meals a day (2 on the weekend). If you bring the inmates back in if they can't pay that's just costing the state / feds more money.

[Benton]

(02-03-2016, 08:20 PM)StLucieBengal Wrote: I am with you on something needs to be done.   But how about reforms on how we sentence..  Instead of treating them like a bunch of morons.

that would be a better place to start. A guy busted for selling pot and serving a life sentence is absurd. That plays into that mindset of incarceration is part of life. Especially for someone who's option is selling pot to college kids making 30$ an hour or working at McDonald's for 7$ an hour.

[StLucieBengal]

(02-03-2016, 09:28 PM)Brownshoe Wrote: lol how can the state / feds charge the inmates? They don't make any money, and if they do have money on their books the commissary is crazy expensive. It's not like they're in there with AC.  They get a bar of soap (every few weeks), 3 changes of clothes, a cot, a pair of boots, and 3 meals a day (2 on the weekend). If you bring the inmates back in if they can't pay that's just costing the state / feds more money.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/18/news/economy/prison-fees-inmates-debt/

Not sure how it is in your state but here in Florida we charge. And 43 other states according to this ...

Quote:Jeremy Barrett remembers very little of the assault that would change his life.
He was at the end of a three-year sentence in a Florida state prison when he was caught stealing potatoes from the prison kitchen. As punishment, he was sent to confinement with a cellmate who, according to court filings, was "severely mentally ill." The man attacked Barrett in a violent rage, ultimately gouging out one of his eyes. "I went into shock," Barrett said.
When he got out of prison one month later, Barrett, 36, sued the Florida Department of Corrections for negligence. The department responded with a counterclaim or a "cost of incarceration lien" of $54,750 -- the total cost of Barrett's 1,095 day stay in the prison at $50 a day.

"They charged me for me being in prison," Barrett said. "Yeah I was surprised."
When another inmate, Dee Taylor, was released after serving a three-year bid in various Florida prisons, he also got a bill for around $55,000 from the Florida Department of Corrections.
"I was floored," Taylor said. "It's an astronomical number. It's almost laughable." Taylor, 69, said he had not filed a lawsuit against the department and that he wasn't sure why he got the bill.

A copy of the court documents showing the total amount Jeremy Barrett owed the Florida Department of Corrections for his stay.
Such cases stem from a Florida law that allows the state to charge inmates $50 a day to cover the costs of their incarceration. According to a spokesman at the Florida Department of Corrections, every person who is convicted in the state immediately begins accruing the $50 a day "cost of incarceration lien." If an inmate sues the department, like Barrett did, the department can decide to charge them for the cost of their stay. In other cases, like Taylor's, it's typically a judge who decides whether to invoke the statute and charge the former inmate.
And this doesn't just happen in Florida.
A recent report from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law found that these types of fees, where inmates can be charged for room and board, have been authorized in at least 43 states. In 2014, for example, an appellate court in Illinois ruled that a Chicago inmate named Johnnie Melton would have to pay nearly $20,000 to the Illinois Department of Corrections for the cost of his incarceration.
"We're seeing it all over, medical co-pays, cost of incarceration claims, you name it." said Randall C. Berg Jr., the executive director of the Florida Justice Institute which represented Barrett.
Fees have also been charged for booking, probation, DNA testing, use of a public defender, police transport, phone calls and video visitation, court costs and sentencing.
In Arizona, an inmate's friends and family can be charged $25 just to visit them. In 35 states, facilities can charge inmates for medical services. Some of these charges can be taken directly out of a prisoner's commissary account while the person is still incarcerated. In some cases, the commissary account itself is subject to fees.
While charging such fees is nothing new, the amount that inmates and other defendants can be charged and the total number of fees they can incur have grown significantly, said Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior counsel at the Brennan Center. According to the Brennan Center report, an estimated 10 million people now owe more than $50 billion as a result of these charges.
Such fees have increasingly become the norm as the costs of running the nation's criminal justice system have "skyrocketed," said Eisen. Over the course of 30 years, the cost of running everything from the courts to the prisons have climbed by 650% to $265 billion in 2012, the report found.
The fines and fees vary across the country. In Springfield, Oregon, inmates at the municipal jail, which holds people on misdemeanor or felony charges for up to one year, can be charged an "inmate housing fee" of $60 a night. Typically, judges decide whether to charge the fee, a decision that often depends on that inmate's ability to pay, said Tim Doney, the Springfield police chief. Last year, the facility collected just $7,924 in such fees, a small percentage of the nearly $3 million budget needed to run the jail, Doney said.
Indeed, a 2013 report conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union in Ohio found that state facilities that charged inmates for their stay often failed to collect on debts after the prisoner had been released -- even after employing aggressive collection tactics to do so. For example, between 2008 and 2011, the jail in Fairfield County only collected 15% of the "pay-to-stay" fees it charged inmates, the report showed. The county ended the program in 2012.
Alexes Harris, an expert in the field of correctional fines and fees at the University of Washington said such charges can have severe economic consequences, particularly for the majority of inmates who are low income or indigent. "It becomes a permanent financial sentence that these people who are poor can never fulfill," Harris said. "It's not rehabilitative."

Dee Taylor received a bill for $55,000 from the Florida Department of Corrections after he was released from prison.
A new report about the costs of mass incarceration by a coalition of social and racial justice groups shows that families spend an average of $13,607 on conviction-related costs, including restitution and attorney's fees. Yet, nearly half of the families surveyed in the report said they could not afford the charges. And that's when things start to snowball.
Say an inmate gets a bill for $5,000 for medical care, "If you have a very good lawyer, you might be able to fight it," said Eisen of the Brennan Center. "If you ignore it, you could have a warrant out for your arrest." The state could also lay claim to your estate if you die, prevent you from accessing public housing or revoke your driver's license, she said. It might also affect your ability to receive government benefits like Social Security, she added.
Berg, of the Florida Justice Institute, said he considered his state's use of the so-called "pay-to-stay" statute against former inmates to be "vindictive" particularly if an inmate, like Barrett, sues the facility. "I think the only time they do this to these other guys is when they are retaliating," Berg said.
Barrett, who is currently looking for work and living in a mobile home in Indiana, eventually won his lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections and was awarded a settlement of $150,000. However, $54,750 of that money went to the state to pay for his stay in jail, while another estimated $50,000 went toward the fine he was charged for drug trafficking, a felony. He spent $2,200 on a prosthetic eye.
Taylor, however, has not paid his $55,000 fee. "I don't have the means to fight it," said Taylor, who lives in a mobile home in Alabama and supports himself with Social Security payments. "I'm gonna rise above this," he said. "God is going to get me through it."

[Brownshoe]

(02-03-2016, 09:46 PM)StLucieBengal Wrote: http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/18/news/economy/prison-fees-inmates-debt/

Not sure how it is in your state but here in Florida we charge.   And 43 other states according to this ...

They don't charge them for prison stay unless they sue them. It's idiotic to put someone in debt for going to prison. That would increase the recitative rate by a ton if they did that for everyone, and in the long run it would cost more money for the government. It even says in the article that it's hard for them to collect the money anyways. You really can't take money away from someone if they don't have any. Most people who get out of prison stay broke the rest of their life, because they can't find a decent job because they were in prison. Making it easier for them to just go and steal or sell drugs to get money.

[*michaelsean*]

Charging an inmate to go to prison may be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

[StLucieBengal]

They charge them when they put them in jail, setting up canteen, daily charge, and any medical.

I will find the list of charges. My jaw dropped when I saw all these poor people were getting hit with.... Part of the reason I changed my stance on criminal justice reform.

[Brownshoe]

(02-03-2016, 10:17 PM)StLucieBengal Wrote: They charge them when they put them in jail, setting up canteen, daily charge, and any medical.    

I will find the list of charges.   My jaw dropped when I saw all these poor people were getting hit with....  Part of the reason I changed my stance on criminal justice reform.

They only send them the bill if they try to sue the prison/jail though. It's not like they're charging every single inmate. I still don't agree with it.

[StLucieBengal]

(02-03-2016, 10:19 PM)Brownshoe Wrote: They only send them the bill if they try to sue the prison/jail though. It's not like they're charging every single inmate. I still don't agree with it.

One of my employees siblings was In jail over the weekend in St Lucie county a couple of years ago. .   Was charged loads of charges.    I will check it out and even if I need to go to the county jail here and ask.    This is now interesting and I want to make sure i got it all down.

[Belsnickel]

(02-03-2016, 10:19 PM)Brownshoe Wrote: They only send them the bill if they try to sue the prison/jail though. It's not like they're charging every single inmate. I still don't agree with it.

No, some jails will charge them outright. Our county jail does. It's one of the most ridiculous things out there.

[fredtoast]

Charging inmates for their stay in jail is very common on the local city/county level.

[fredtoast]

A lot of you people clearly don't understand the purpose of our criminal justice system. The goal is not just to punish criminals. The goal is to prevent crime and protect innocent citizens from crime.

It is easy for you guys who are not victims to say "Who cares how many people are the victim of crimes, we cxan just build more jails" But I work in the criminal justice system and I see the impact of crime on the victims.

So i would rather my tax money go towards preventing crime and protecting innocent citizens instead of just building more jails.