The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

At hearings across the state, the executive director of the non profit Criminal Justice Policy Coalition heard a lot about crime, about mandatory sentencing, about the need for better community policing. What Keating did not hear was any suggestion that the state tap convicted criminals as a lucrative resource to pay for more police officers on the streets of the Commonwealth.

Imagine her surprise when the governor proposed just such a levy at the Massachusetts Municipal Association's annual meeting. Keating reacted in much the way Patrick's audience did, with stunned silence. "I didn't hear this idea floated anywhere," she said, and called it "unrealistic and counterproductive. I have to believe he will come to his senses."
Patrick might if he remembers that the campaign is over, and he won. The voters did not buy what the fear-mongers were selling last fall, that a lawyer who champions a criminal's legal rights would make a governor who is soft on crime.
Requiring offenders to pay for the repercussions of their crimes is a time-honored practice across the country, from Illinois's surcharge on child pornographers to fund counseling for sexually abused children to Indiana's levy on domestic abusers to support battered women's shelters. But this state already imposes any number of fees on offenders to pay for everything from witness services and victim compensation to the tracking devices some wear around their ankles.

"I couldn't understand where this came from. No one talked to us or anyone else I know," said Lanny Kutakoff, executive director of the non profit Partakers Inc., which runs education programs in four state prisons. "This seems very much the antithesis of Patrick's philosophy."

It is the antithesis of thoughtful public policy, too. Patrick's projections that he could raise $10 million a year from a largely indigent population that is plagued by substance abuse and mental health problems is fanciful. "These people can't afford the fees they are forced to pay now," Kutakoff said, noting that Patrick's predecessor as governor, Mitt Romney, sharply increased probation fees a few days before he left office.

In the week since Patrick floated this lead balloon, the administration has said no more about it. The press office did not return a call seeking more details. The silence probably reflects the feedback Patrick is hearing from the inmate advocacy community, which had hoped that 16 years of Republican pandering to the tough-on-crime crowd would give way to meaningful corrections reform.
"He's new to the job," said a patient Kutakoff. "He needs some time to be educated."
"He has an enormous amount of stuff to pore through right now," said an equally sympathetic Keating. "We think he is open to rethinking this idea."
Volunteers in the Partakers prison programs hope so. Many of them dip into their own wallets to help inmates pay for necessities. One woman who regularly visits an inmate at Bay State Correctional Center scoffed at the notion that prisons in Massachusetts are "hotels with fresh soaps and little shampoo and conditioner kits." She asked not to be identified because the prisons require volunteers to disclose any contact with the media (another policy ripe for change).
"A prisoner may earn up to $5 a week, half of which must go into savings. Out of this they may buy toiletries, school supplies, stamps, jeans and sneakers from only one vendor at a price double or triple what a free person would pay," she said. "People love to be tough on crime and therefore tough on criminals, but these men and women are human beings, too, and most of them are not only broken up, they're broke."

Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@ globe.com

Letters to the Editor---The Globe
Making criminals pay January 21, 2007

AFTER READING about how our new governor will raise $10 million by charging criminals, I have to protest ("Patrick proposes new fee on criminals," Page A1, Jan. 14). That $10 million would be better spent on programs that would eliminate the need for hiring another 250 police officers.
Where does Governor Patrick think these criminals come from? They come mainly from situations where they see no hope, no compassion.
How about if we put that $10 million toward GED programs, mentor programs, after-school programs, or drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs? Or toward hiring more social workers so that they can better serve fragile families who are growing future criminals as we speak?
We can still fine the affluent who pass occasionally through our justice system, but let's not further beat down those who pass through all too often.
LISA MacLEAN Roslindale

GOV. PATRICK'S resourcefulness and ability to think clearly are evident in the idea of paying for more police with a "safety fee," which would be assessed on every person convicted of a crime. Creative thinking has been missing from politics in Massachusetts for years, and is nonexistent at the national level.
Opponents of the plan are making unnecessary noise about an inconvenience equivalent to a slap on the wrists of criminals. Instead of seeking to take advantage of the good will of the people of Massachusetts, opponents should think again and be grateful for this governor. Patrick's idea is just and sound. I look forward to more of the same from him.
PATRICIA McCARRON
North Andover

The new governor's proposal is a shameful way for him to start out his term. This may play well to the law-and-order crowd that brought us the current prison crisis, but it targets a population that is largely indigent and whose families would bear the burden, as opponents pointed out in your article.
Eliot Spitzer, New York's new governor, started his term in a much more promising way: by ending the contracts allowing phone companies to charge prisoners and their families exorbitant fees for collect calls. While the contracts brought in $16 million for the state in 2005 alone, Spitzer agreed with activists that the practice was exploitative. It inhibited contact between prisoners and their families -- contact that enhances public safety by improving a prisoners' chances of reintegrating once they get out. It also amounted to charging low-income communities for their own relatives' incarceration.
Meanwhile, Patrick starts his term with more of the same punitive and failing criminal justice policies. What is he thinking? We need progressive solutions to Massachusetts' prison crisis.
CHRIS STURR Boston The writer is the co-editor of Dollars & Sense magazine.

GOVERNOR PATRICK'S proposal to impose an additional fee on criminals is deeply disappointing and disturbing. His statement that "it's fair to have people who are at the center of causing and committing crime to help us pay" reminds us how far our views have shifted to the right.
What does it say about our political attitudes if the newly elected Democratic governor of a traditionally liberal state looks to criminal defendants to help solve the state's fiscal problems? Is that not like a new CEO suggesting that low-level employees who are laid off pay a fee to help solve the company's fiscal problems?
With a landslide victory and a mandate for change, Governor Patrick could reshape our attitude about the cost of maintaining our way of life and who should bear it. He could remind us that those who benefit most from our way of life should bear most of the responsibility for its upkeep.
He could flatly state that it is not acceptable to blame the poor and the weak for what is wrong with our world. And he could challenge those of us who share the power to change our world to help him fix what is wrong with it. We elected Patrick to help us make this a better world.
ANTHONY J. CANATA Holyoke

Here is the article from the Globe:
The Boston Globe
Patrick proposes new fee on criminals
Money would fund hiring of more police

By Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | January 14, 2007
Governor Deval Patrick said yesterday that he had come up with a way to pay for more police officers in Massachusetts: charge convicted criminals a fee.
Unveiling his most detailed account yet of his plans for next year's state budget, Patrick said he would propose a "safety fee," which every person convicted of a crime would have to pay.

The program is modeled on a similar fee the state now levies against people who violate the law, a program that generate s about $6 million annually to pay for services for witnesses and victims of crime. Those fees range from $90 for anyone over age 17 convicted of a felony to $50 for those convicted of a misdemeanor and $45 for anyone who commits a civil motor vehicle infraction, such as speeding.
Patrick said he had not yet set the amount of the proposed fee. But he estimated that it would raise $10 million annually, about half of the $20 million he expects to spend to hire 250 additional police officers in the new fiscal year, which begins July 1. Patrick said he wants to eventually add 1,000 new police officers to the streets, at a cost of $85 million.
"There are debts to society that have to be paid by people who break our laws, some of that by jail time, some of that by fees," Patrick said at a press conference at the State House. "I don't imagine it's going to be so onerous that it's impossible to pay, but I do think it's fair to have people who are at the center of causing and committing crime to help us pay."
Reacting to Patrick's announcement, advocates of prisoners' rights said the plan was unfair.
Leslie Walker, executive director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, which represents inmates, said about 85 percent of convicted criminals in Massachusetts earn less than $11,000 a year at the time of their convictions. In prison, only about 10 percent of inmates work, earning $1.50 a day.
"While this may sound logical initially," Walker said of the proposed fee, "most defendants are indigent and are already assessed a number of fees. Those who are sent to prison have to pay to see doctors, and get haircuts, and who ends up paying? Their families."
"I'm dubious because disproportionately the people in the criminal justice system are people who don't have a lot of money," said Sarah Wunsch, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. "It seems to me imposing fees on people who don't have a lot of money is not the way to go."

Patrick, in a speech earlier yesterday to the Massachusetts Municipal Association, also promised to deliver a "modest increase" in state aid to cities and towns, mainly to pay for elementary and high school education. He also said he wants to hear ideas from local officials as he considers whether to abolish a property tax exemption for telecommunications companies and to legalize casino gambling or slot machines.
Finally, he suggested allowing cities and towns to join the Group Insurance Commission, the health insurance program for state workers, which he said would save communities millions of dollars annually.
"We didn't come here today with a big bag of free cash, nor a series of set mandates," Patrick told hundreds of local officials at the annual meeting of the association, which represents the interests of city and town governments. "We came with a few ideas about a grand bargain we want to make with you: what we can do, what we think you can do, and what we ought to do together to build stronger cities and towns and ultimately a stronger Commonwealth."
Pressed by local officials in a question-and-answer session, Patrick declined to say how much he would deliver in additional local aid, though he said the bulk would be funneled to schools. This fiscal year, the state provided about $4.9 billion in local aid, including $3.5 billion for schools. According to the municipal association, funding for grades K-12 has decreased by $682 million since fiscal year 2002, when adjusted for inflation.
Citing a looming budget gap that he says could top $1 billion, Patrick said affording an increase in state funding for local services would "be neither easy nor instant." State funding, in addition to schools, helps pay for trash collection, police and firefighters, and other services.
"Because the strength of our communities is central to everything else," Patrick said to applause at the Hynes Convention Center , "I will not decrease local aid. In fact, we plan a modest increase."

Patrick also pledged to support legislation that would allow cities and towns to hike the state's 5 percent meals tax to as much as 8 percent.
"Many cities and towns need alternative revenue sources, beyond property taxes, to support the services your residents want," Patrick told the local officials. "I trust you and your neighbors to determine whether a 1, 2, or 3 percent increment on lunch at the local pub is appropriate and fair."
Many local officials, including Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, have unsuccessfully pressured the Legislature to grant them the power to raise such taxes. Yesterday, they welcomed Patrick's support.
"That's essential," said Geoff Beckwith , executive director of the municipal association . "The local option tax for meals, we believe, is long overdue. Most communities in the country have the ability to diversify their tax base, beyond their local property tax, and in Massachusetts, we don't have that ability."
Critics said that among the items Patrick proposed yesterday, the meals tax seems most likely to generate opposition in the Legislature.
"It's families that end up paying those taxes, and that makes Massachusetts less affordable," said Senate minority leader Richard R. Tisei , a Wakefield Republican. "In Boston, they point out, it's tourists who end up paying a lot of the tax, but when you really boil it down, it's average families who want to go out for dinner, and it's additional costs that you're putting on them."
Patrick said he harbored "misgivings" about legalizing casinos because of their potential to increase crime and tax the poor. But he said he wanted to "hear all sides" as he makes up his mind.
He also said he wanted to hear from all sides as he considers repealing a property tax exemption for telecommunications companies. Patrick said the tax made sense to help the industry grow when it was in its infancy, but now he questions its merit. If the exemption were repealed, Menino said, Boston would be able to deliver an average of $200 in property annual tax relief to city homeowners.
"Our job is to consider whether that exemption is right today," Patrick said, adding he wanted to "balance all of the interests."
Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.

C Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/01/14/patrick_p