As we examine civil liberty issues from the past and present in our American Studies class, it is interesting to see similar events unfold before our eyes. The civil liberty in question today comes out of Elko County, Nevada. The county’s Commission and Sheriff agreed to start charging inmates for their stay. $6 daily for meals, $10 for a visit from a doctor, and an initial $5 charge for admission into jail.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is taking issue with this. The ACLU is a non-profit organization whose mission statement is “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." Basically they defend people in court who they believe are having their civil liberties taken from them. In this case, they believe it is the right of a prisoner to get free food and health care from the county. The ACLU believe that if a jail charges its inmates, it takes rights from them.
On the other hand, there are people like Elko County Commissioner Grant Gerber, who believes the fees should be even higher. He says, “Why should the people of Elko County pay for somebody else's meals in jail?" Elko County Sheriff Jim Pitts reports the numbers for inmates is $85/inmate per day. This covers food, services, housing, and utilities. The capacity of the facility is 120, which means a total of $10,000 is spent each day on the prisoners. The prisoners don’t have to pay if they work for the jail, or if they are in prison under 24 hours. Also, those found innocent in the future get fully reimbursed.
Some might say this law would only feed the “Prison-Industrial Complex”. Arguments could be made that the prisoners would be exploited as either sources of income, or sources of free labor.
My line of thinking is completely opposite from that. I don’t think that civil liberties are being abused. I think this is criminals monetarily paying for their crimes.
First, we know that the prison system can be abused. Anyone who doesn’t want to work/can’t find work can easily commit a crime and get thrown into jail to get their needs met. Charging inmates would make this practice disappear, because crime would no longer be a free ticket to food and shelter.
Second, this would take a load off the backs of innocent taxpayers. Why would an innocent person have to pay for the crimes of others? That doesn’t make sense. Unfortunately, because prisons are government run, taxpayer dollars go towards that. Implementing this system would share the load between the taxpayer and the offender.
There are other reasons for my stance on this issue, but those are the two main ones. If you would like to weigh in, feel free to comment below.
Read more here.
1 comment:
This is a very interesting issue JJ, I did not even know this practice was happening. To be honest as I was reading your blog at first when you explained the issue I was thinking in my head that it was ridiculous for prisoners it have to pay for jail time because it is forced upon them and it has always been a tradition that they would not have to. However as I read farther when you weigh in on the subject I began to change my mind because you made some very compelling arguments.
Post a Comment