I read an article yesterday which really should not be surprising to me.  Apparently, the good folks in New Bedford, Massachussetts have a terrific idea.  Two Republican state reps propose to completely eliminate the meager wages that they give to prisoners for their labor.

Specifically:

In a Tuesday morning press conference at the State House in Boston, Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson and State Rep. Elizabeth Poirier, R-Attleboro, announced their plan for the state to stop paying nominal wages for inmates who work behind bars and in work-release programs.

The two Republican officials said the legislation would save taxpayers between $2.5 to $3 million a year, and made the argument that rewarding working inmates with “good time” off their sentences would be a better incentive and one that would save more money by releasing them from prison earlier.

But here’s the kicker:

Hodgson’s proposal to stop payments to inmates also raises the issue of his former policy of charging inmates and detainees at the Dartmouth House of Correction $5 a day as a cost-of-care fee. That policy was definitively ruled illegal earlier this year by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which ordered the sheriff to pay back $750,000 to inmates who were charged the fee from 2002-2004.

(On Monday July 12, there was a preliminary hearing about the timeline and manner in which those inmates will be reimbursed the money. The $750,000 has been kept in an escrow account up until now.)

Still, the sheriff was successful in lobbying both chambers of the state Legislature to pass laws allowing sheriffs to charge a daily inmate fee. But the chambers’ varying bills were sent to the joint conference committee, which established a commission to study the issue; a maneuver recognized as a way to slowly kill off a bill in purgatory.

Hodgson said it is a “no-brainer” that sheriffs should have the legal authority to charge inmates a daily fee, arguing that it helps offset the costs of incarceration.

Yes, you read that correctly they were actually CHARGING prisoners for the privilege of being incarcerated.  Do people across the country know that this is happening?  The injustice of the PIC is clear but the sense of impugnity with which the actors within this system operate is mind-boggling.  Also, does anyone actually think that the former prisoners will see a dime of the money in the escrow account?  If you do, then I have some land to sell you in Alaska?