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: The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

States going to great lengths to squeeze money from pirsoners

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Some states are charging inmates fees for prison stay Daily charges help ease prison costs amid budget cuts By Deborah Hastings Associated Press / August 16, 2009 A one-night stay? Ninety dollars. Need to see a doctor? Ten bucks. Want toilet paper? Pay for it yourself. In the ever-widening search for extra income during desperate economic times, states across the nation are embracing a new idea: making inmates pay their debt to society not only in hard time, but also in cold, hard cash. In New York, Assemblyman James Tedisco introduced a bill that would charge wealthy criminals $90 a day for room and board at state prisons. Dubbed the Madoff Bill, after Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, the legislation is designed to ease the $1 billion annual cost of incarcerating prisoners...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on August 16, 2009 (boomark / email).