Was not aware one has to pay for one's prison time now.

[lildreamer316]

I have, shall we say, a *friend* who is doing a few weekends for a DUI conviction. He not only has to pay for his parole officer, which we were aware of, but now also $40 for every day he spends in jail.

I don't expect you to have sympathy for him,but I do think it speaks to the overall state of the Prison Industrial Complex.

Just to let you know...

[derby378]

1. This is what happens when taxes are slashed too drastically

And if he can't pay for his incarceration, what does the jail do? Turn him over to a collection agency? If he can't pay the collectors, does he go back to jail?

Boggles the mind, it does...

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. When you can't pay they issue a warrant

and come pick you up, take you to jail and bill you for the time.

[donco]

2. He is sentenced to two years

of working for portfolio recovery.:(

[RoccoR5955]

3. You think that's bad...

I got a $15 traffic ticket a couple of weeks ago, pled guilty, and they tacked on an $85 "court surcharge," even though I didn't go to court!!!!
It's not just the Prison-Industrial Complex, it's the whole Law Enforcement-Industrial Complex.

[ejpoeta]

9. i know here there is a hefty NYS surcharge tacked on to anything.

it's ridiculous.

[notesdev]

4. They must have taken a tip from China

when the PRC executes someone they bill the family for the bullet

[TheKentuckian]

5. Yeah, that has been moving for some years now.

Right along with the private prisons.

The more there is of one the more we see the other.

There is too damn much money in jails. I bet the folks that run the ATMs that you can send money for fees and the canteen make a pretty penny on their piece of the action.

Think about the poor fuckers that are in for bullcrap like weed.

Think about the totally counter-productive concepts of stacking that stuff on even crappy deadbeat dads that now will be further behind contributing in some tiny way to bringing up their kids.

The whole corrections system is pretty much a clusterfuck like almost everything else but maybe especially stupid and bad, fueled in no small part by vengeance rather than protecting the public and correcting the unacceptable actions.

We have thousands of years of pretty solid evidence that what we do does not work and generally helps construct a rather violent and optionless super underclass while filling the coffers of generally much more dangerous, greedy, callous, and certainly totalitarian super over class of organized crime capable of buying state and Federal governments.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Yes. And the phone system is another scam.

I have a good friend who has been working on reforming our prison system for years. He sends out great emails. Just shocking information.

[lildreamer316]

8. We had no idea..

Until the first time he did some time, a short stint a couple years ago. Quite a shock about the phone time. It's a serious ripoff. Oh, and the salt peter in the food (so not only can you not function and you are malnourished, but you are pretty much forced to put something on your canteen card so you can eat something semi-decent). Just wonderful.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. A person I know who had to do some time recently

said they breathalize everyone when they check in. The first guy in line showed up drunk and blew drunk so everyone else who tested after him tested at .01. That's a violation for most of them. So they now have to go back to court, hire a lawyer, etc.

Our criminal justice system is a freakin joke.

[lildreamer316]

12. OMG thank you for telling me this!!

This could be important. I'll pass that along.
Just wow. What utter bs.

[Odin2005]

11. This is 3rd World style corruption.

[Tsiyu]

13. They're coming for the middle class next

They've just about tapped out all the poor people. The ones too poor and weak to fight back.

You want to see something scary, sorry and sad, spend a little time in the Franklin County, TN General Sessions Court. We call it "HeeHaw meets the Spanish Inquisition" around here. (Another friend says it reminds him of the bar scene in Star Wars)

It's like a TV show set, with lawyers and probation officers walking around chonking gum on the "stage," blurting out rude comments to the defendants, the DA pitching hissy fits like a Palin offspring, and a "chorus" of nosy government motherfuckers from DCS, etc., who have no business spending taxpayer money sitting on their asses for most of the cases, but who HAVE to fillup on gossip and enjoy the goddamned show.

It's a fucking disgrace. And the "defendants?" Mostly poor, disabled, not a pot to piss in, scared, no decent counsel, herded like dogs to the clerks where they pay exhorbitant court fees...I could go on.

It makes me sick every time I have to go there, to see how they treat the least of these. Especially when I know the DA is a "churchgoing man" - who'd turn Jesus into a felon , in my opinion, if it made his dick hard that day. If that man knows the meaning of "mercy" or "forgiveness," I'm the fucking queen of England. ( A retired priest who attends the same church as the DA told me once, when I was in tears about the cruelty of the DA, "Child, you just have to name that evil" = and he looked straight at the DA, we were all in a coffeeshop - "name that evil, call it the disgrace it is and let it go. But the naming of it helps you define it and deal with it." The fact that that priest seemed to know this guy's evil was very telling to me....

His victims are the poor and downtrodden.

But next, they come for you middle class folk. It's a "growth industry" and the only way they can "grow" is to criminalize more and more stuff, or to totally do away with any privacy or fourth amendment shred of a right you might have left. You'll be the ones in court soon, outraged at the farce of justice modern "court" represents.

Law enforcement these days is all about the $$$$$$ zero about public safety....IMO

On the instant karma note: one of the cops in the Franklin County courthouse was this mean sonofabitch who screamed at everyone. Ugly, ill, no regard for whether you were there on business, with a defendant or plaintiff or a defendant yourself.

"Shut Up!" he'd scream to everyone. Never a kind word, just a pure evil sonofabitch. I wrote down his name once to complain. He stopped screaming after I did that.

But he later ended up dropping dead right there in the courthouse..yeah. Karma is a bitch sometimes. Better watch how you treat people!