By Tia Mitchell
The Florida Times-Union
By JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford wants jail inmates to pay more of the costs of their incarcerations.
By collecting the new inmate fees and increasing the cost residents pay for public records and other services, Rutherford hopes to add nearly $1 million to his department’s budget.
Under the proposal, inmates will now be charged a $2 daily subsistence fee to defray the costs of meals and other basic needs. Also, they will be required to pay a portion of the costs of seeing a dentist or obtaining prescription medicine. Inmates already are charged $20 when they are booked at the jail and $5 each time they make a doctor appointment.
Rutherford wants to increase the fees for copies of traffic crash and general offense reports from $3 to $6.
The new fees come as the city’s various agencies are preparing their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year amid hard economic times that include state budget cuts and declining tax revenue.
“I think the general public will appreciate the fact inmates will be made to pay some of their own way,” he said.
Rutherford’s proposal will be introduced to the City Council today.
The idea of earning money by charging inmates and the public new fees was first proposed to Rutherford by the Jacksonville Journey’s Law Enforcement and Deterrence Subcommittee.
Paul Perez, a former U.S. attorney who chaired the subcommittee, said the goal was to find ways to make money because so many of the Jacksonville Journey recommendations required spending money.
Nationwide, detention facilities have noted that charging inmates for basic medical care also discourages abuse of sick calls, which can save additional dollars.
State law allows jails to charge inmates daily subsistence fees, as well as recover some of the costs of medical expenses.
Several sheriff’s offices throughout the state charge inmates $2 or $3 a day, including Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Putnam County’s subsistence fee is $3 daily, in addition to a $10 booking fee paid upon arrival. The county also charges prisoners various medical service fees, including $10 to see a doctor.
Clay and St. Johns counties also charge inmates up-front booking fees and medical co-pays, though neither has a subsistence fee.
Duval County’s three correctional facilities house roughly 3,400 prisoners each day. The average costs of their meals and medical care is about $11 daily, according to a Jacksonville Journey report.
More than 60,000 medical calls for services were answered and 20 percent of the inmate population received medication, according to a 2005 annual report from the Sheriff’s Office Corrections Department.
The $987,000 Rutherford hopes to collect next year would only put a dent in his department’s $322 million budget. He based the estimate on the assumption that about one-third of inmates would actually have enough money in the jail accounts to pay what is owed.
Duval County’s policy, like others across the nation, says that necessary services are provided to inmates regardless of the ability to pay.
If a prisoner can’t pay, the Sheriff’s Office will try to collect once money is added to the inmate’s jail account by someone else or, if the person is re-arrested at a later date, by taking a portion of the money confiscated at booking.
Copyright 2008 The Florida Times-Union