Virginian-Pilot


DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997            TAG: 9708270573

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY RON NIXON, Landmark News Service 

DATELINE: ROANOKE                           LENGTH:   89 lines




GILMORE SAYS PRISONERS SHOULD PAY FOR THEIR STAY

If you are sent to jail or prison in Virginia, Jim Gilmore wants you to pay. Literally.

Speaking in Roanoke at the annual Virginia Sheriff's Association convention Tuesday, the Republican gubernatorial candidate unveiled a proposal that would require prisoners to pay for the cost of their incarceration while locked up and after they have been released. The proposal is part of Gilmore's 21-point plan to fight crime, drugs and gangs.

``We're spending too much money to house criminals,'' Gilmore said. ``Criminals ought to make a contribution to their own incarceration. If they're going to do the crime, they ought to pay for it.''

The money would be collected through garnishment of wages and by withholding any future tax refunds or federal civil awards. Payment would be based on a prisoner's ability to pay. The plan would allow law-enforcement and corrections officials to use the debt collection unit of the attorney general's office or a private debt collection agency to collect payments.

Prisoners who were unable to pay would have to perform community service during their incarceration and after their release.

A spokeswoman for Gilmore's opponent, Don Beyer, called the proposal a rehash of a plan from a previous campaign, and prisoners' rights advocates said the plan was political pandering. Questions about the constitutionality of the proposal

raised by prisoners' rights advocates can't be answered until the legislation is crafted.

Gilmore said the plan would save the state about $140 million, reducing the $470 million that Virginia taxpayers pay on state prisons and the $230 million spent on local jails each year.

According to the Virginia Department of Corrections, it costs about $45 a day - roughly $16,400 a year - to house an inmate.

Gilmore said he had not worked out exactly how much of the total cost each prisoner would be required to pay. He said he did not expect the state to be able to collect 100 percent.

Sheriffs and prison superintendents would use the money to pay for law enforcement programs, salary increases, drug prevention programs and beefing up security at jail and prisons, Gilmore said.

Page Boinest, spokeswoman for Democratic candidate Don Beyer, said Gilmore's proposal isn't a new idea.

``Gilmore talked about this four years ago when he was campaigning for attorney general and nothing ever came of it,'' Boinest said. ``Today he repackaged it and rolls this out as if it were a new idea. He's been the attorney general for years and never did anything on this at all.''

Boinest said Beyer supports the idea of prisoners working while they are incarcerated.

Prisoners in Virginia already pay some cost of their incarceration. Felons pay $200, and inmates convicted of misdemeanors pay $50. Prisoners in state institutions are also required to pay for medical expenses. Many local officials in Virginia require inmates to pay for jail costs. But these payments are taken from wages the prisoners earn while they are incarcerated, not after they have been released.

Prisoners' rights advocates called Gilmore's plan misguided and political pandering. ``It's debtors prison for life,'' said Kent Willis of the American Civil Liberties Union in Richmond.

Jerry Miller, director of the Alexandria-based National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, called the plan ``thuggery run amok.''

``It's the kind of thing that you would expect in a political year,'' he said. ``Crime is a winner - the more vicious you can be and the more you can portray criminals as a different breed.''

Jenni Gainsborough, a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union's Prisons and Jails Projects in Washington, said the ``focus should be on reintroducing these people back into their families instead of handing them a huge bill once they leave prison.''

``The truth is, (state officials) are never going to get anything back like the cost of incarceration,'' Gainsborough said. ``Most prisoners when they get out are functionally illiterate and have a criminal record. You're taking someone with all these strikes against them and telling them to get a job so they can pay back the state. There's no incentive to get an honest job. Who's going to hire them? This is continuing punishment after they've left prison.''

Gilmore responded that for the longest time, taxpayers have borne the burden of paying to incarcerate criminals, and that it's time that the criminals started paying something back. ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

Jim Gilmore, GOP candidate for governor, would garnish inmates'

future wages to make them pay part of the cost of prison stays.

Graphic

Highlights of Anti-Crime Ideas

Don Beyer

Jim Gilmore

For complete copy, see microfilm KEYWORDS: CANDIDATE ELECTION



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