Monday, December 29, 2008
According to the article City of Immigrants Fills Jail Cells With Its Own, "as the number of detainees in Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, increased, so did revenue from surcharges on their collect calls to relatives, under a contract with Global Tel Link. The arrangement that gave Wyatt a cut of about $564,000 a year had survived a state ban on phone surcharges at prisons, thanks to lobbying that gave Wyatt a loophole. "
In a similar vein, the Dorchester County Sheriff's Office apparently continues to assess a surcharge against inmates housed in the Dorchester County Jail on the collect calls to relatives. Many of these inmates have not been convicted of anything. And many of the collect calls are made to appointed counsel who sometimes receive little or no compensation for their services.* And while it strikes us as unconscionable to pass these exorbitant charges on to either the families or the appointed counsel of the detainees, we think that, at the very least, the Dorchester County Sheriff should both account to County Counsel for the money he is receiving from this venture and he should follow through on his repeated promise to appoint an independent citizens committee to oversee the expenditures of these funds.
*Check out Lawyers could go unpaid.
Labels: Sixth Amendment
: 7:17 PM Given the number of fathers who are going through the jails each month, you would think that some of them would begin to care that they are being strong-armed. Given how much it costs to imprison these men--many of whom are guilty of nothing other than having bad luck--you would think that the public would demand to know how much money is going into the jail accounts and what is being done with it.
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