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MA: OUR VIEW: Mass. should implement inmate fees (Taunton Daily Gazette) and response from Paul Heroux

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

OUR VIEW: Mass. should implement inmate fees Taunton Daily Gazette- GateHouse News Service Feb 01, 2011 If crime doesn?t pay, then why are we all paying for inmates to have free housing, three squares a day and medical, and dental and vision care that some taxpayers can?t afford? That was the premise of Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson?s enactment of a daily $5 cost-of-care fee he collected from Bristol County House of Correction inmates between 2002 and 2004. But after a long appeals process, that plan was pronounced dead last year when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed with a lower court ruling that the sheriff lacked the authority to collect the fee without enabling legislation. Such legislation has been introduced and has died on Beacon Hill every year since 2004, when the courts struck down the collection of inmate fees, including $3 to $5 medical, dental, prescription and vision copays, which had previously been collected by some sheriffs across the state...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on February 18, 2011 (boomark / email).