Published: September 17, 2007 08:32 am            

Paying your debt to society: Federal court upholds fees

View from the Bench

County governments may find it easier to collect fees owed by inmates incarcerated in the county jail in the wake of a new federal court ruling. Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which comprises Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee, issued a key ruling in this matter. This ruling allows county jails to withhold portions of the inmates’ canteen accounts in order to recoup certain expenses the inmates incurred while incarcerated. This ruling may soften the pinch that local governments feel when the county jail’s operating budget puts them in a bind.

The decision was prompted when inmates, who were incarcerated in Campbell and Kenton counties (Ky.), as well as the inmates’ friends and families, filed three separate lawsuits in federal court. The lawsuits challenged, under federal civil rights laws, the authority of county jails to collect fees from inmates in order to defray the costs of booking and incarceration.

A Kentucky statute requires a prisoner incarcerated in a county jail to reimburse the county for certain expenses the prisoner incurred. These expenses include a booking fee, a daily per diem fee of up to $50, and medical and dental expenses the county paid for during the prisoner’s incarceration. The statute permits the county to collect these fees from the prisoner’s canteen account prior to sentencing.

Prisoners are not allowed to possess cash; therefore, jails use canteen accounts. Family members and friends are permitted to deposit money into a prisoner’s canteen account. The prisoner may then use their canteen account to purchase extra food or convenience items. In the case before the 6th Circuit, family members or friends had sent money to the inmates’ canteen accounts. The counties then deducted booking fees and other jail expenses.

The prisoners filed suit, alleging that the deduction of these funds, in order to defray certain operating expenses, violated their civil rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the county did not provide the prisoners with a “pre-deprivation hearing” prior to deducting the funds. In other words, the prisoners claimed that they were entitled to a court-like hearing before the counties could deduct any funds from the prisoners’ canteen accounts. The 6th Circuit rejected each challenge raised by the Kenton and Campbell County inmates. The court held that a pre-deprivation hearing was unnecessary because the inmates had only a modest private interest at stake.

With the ever-increasing number of county jail inmates, this has become an important issue for both county governments and taxpayers. In many counties, the single largest expense is the operation of the county jail – and the costs just keep rising. County jails have always been locally owned and funded. Unfortunately, county jails are facing increasing difficulty in operation, as well as skyrocketing operating expenditures. This is because the purpose of county jails has dramatically changed over the years.

Bob Lawson, a respected University of Kentucky law professor, noted that county jails have been placed “in government hands least able to afford them and [this] has virtually guaranteed that jails will be engaged in a never-ending struggle for operating resources.”

Almost every person charged in connection with a crime will spend at least some time, however briefly, in a county jail. This is because county jails serve so many different functions – from holding prisoners awaiting trial, to holding convicted inmates who are awaiting transfer to a state facility, to housing inmates convicted of minor crimes. County governments will pay for each and every individual incarcerated.

As the operational costs of county jails has risen, local and state governments have struggled to make fiscal decisions that permit local jails to offset some of the jails’ expenses onto those who receive the benefits. In many instances, county jails incur operating expenses of thousands of dollars, and sometimes into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is primarily because of the nature of the inmate population. Some prisoners are severely addicted to drugs, other prisoners suffer from debilitating diseases or injuries, while still other prisoners are pregnant and desperately require pre-natal care. All of these individuals need and deserve compassionate treatment. Unfortunately, this treatment does not come free. Recouping booking and per diem fees are but one approach to defraying a small portion of these expenses.

In the wake of the 6th Circuit’s ruling, Kentucky county jailers may become more aggressive in collecting funds from inmates’ canteen accounts. At the very least, some merit exists in the argument that inmates should not be allowed to purchase cigarettes with their canteen funds and then expect the taxpayers to provide free medical treatment for smoking-related diseases.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.