Judges Orders Felons to Pay Their Keep

Federal judges across the country increasingly are ordering criminals not only to pay the time for their crime but to pay the cost of their prison stay.

From Jan. 19, 1989, through the end of October, federal judges ordered 254 defendants to pay a monthly fee during their prison sentence, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in Washington, D.C.

“We see this as merely an equitable and common sense thing to do,” said Judge William Wilkins Jr. of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., chairman of the seven-member commission.

“If you have the wherewithal to reimburse taxpayers for the cost of your imprisonment, which you caused through the commission of a criminal act, then you ought to have to pay,” Wilkins said.

Some civil libertarians, however, are objecting. They say the inmates aren’t getting their money’s worth because of overcrowded prison conditions.

The commission, created in October of 1985 after public outcry over sentencing discrepancies, instituted mandatory sentencing guidelines to be applied uniformly in federal courts.

But judges must use discretion in deciding which convicts will pay for their prison stay. Only those who can afford the monthly payment of $1,210, plus $91 a month during probation, can be ordered to pay.

Those fees, calculated by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, cannot be imposed if they would leave the defendant’s family destitute or on welfare, said Paul Martin, a commission spokesman.

“It was kind of a very simple thought--select those folks who have the ability to pay for their cost of incarceration or supervision,” Martin said. “It’s mainly earmarked, of course, for the white-collar defendant, someone who has some financial resource.”

Of the 45,000 cases that reach federal court every year, few criminals appear to fit the bill.

“Most people who are put away in the federal court system are indigent. They don’t have a dime. I’ve had clients who didn’t have enough money to buy a six-pack of beer,” said Ron Wheeler, an attorney in Des Moines.

Last year, Wheeler represented a University of Iowa student charged with possessing LSD with the intent to sell. The student, Matthew Follett of Kenilworth, Ill., pleaded guilty.

In August, U.S. District Judge Charles Wolle sentenced Follett to seven years in prison plus four years of probation.

Noting that Follett had a substantial trust fund, Wolle also fined Follett $20,000 and ordered him to pay for his prison stay, plus the monthly fee during probation.

“I don’t have any problem with that at all,” Wheeler said. “If they’re convicted and can pay the cost of being kept in prison, I think they should.

“It looks nice on paper, but in actuality, there aren’t a lot of these kinds of defendants.”

In February, in another drug-related case, U.S. District Judge Francis J. Boyle of Providence, R. I., ordered three men accused of supplying 75% of the city’s heroin to pay the costs of their confinement.

“It’s the just thing to do,” Boyle said at the time. “To the extent that a defendant is able to pay for it, the defendant should be required to.”

Wilkins and others who support the program say requiring inmates to pay for imprisonment isn’t meant as a deterrent.

“The deterrent effect comes through the imposition of a prison term,” the judge said.

One critic of the program is Alvin J. Bronstein, director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, who noted that the federal prison system is running at 170% of capacity “and getting worse every month.”

“It is clear to me that federal prisons today are basically unconstitutional because of the conditions of overcrowding, inadequate medical care and all the problems created by that mass of overcrowding,” he said.

“It seems unseemly and highly inappropriate--if not illegal--to be requiring defendants to pay for room and board, or the cost of being incarcerated, in an unconstitutional facility,” Bronstein said.