Inmates object to visit fee ($50 for visit with kids)

[Rose Siding]

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. - Blair County inmates must pay a $50 fee if they want to visit their children, and the new policy has angered jailed parents.

The fee covers the cost of transporting prisoners two blocks from the Blair County Jail to the county courthouse, where the visits take place, and the cost of paying two sheriff's deputies attend the visits, Sheriff Larry Field said.

The fee, which Field instituted last month, also cuts down on frivolous visits, he said.

Forty prisoners, who have a total of 72 children, voiced their opposition to the fee in a letter they sent to the Altoona Mirror newspaper.

"How on God's earth can they make their own law, and for people with no money?" inmate Lisa Whitehead wrote in the letter.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/11616255.htm

edit: dated the 11th

[Deja Q]

More family values in our culture of life.

Bzzt.

[Catch22Dem]

1. It costs $50 to move a prisoner 2 blocks?

I mean, I know they're prisoners, but let them see their kids for christs sake. You know these people can't come up with $50.

[Catch22Dem]

2. Hey, how come my reply says original message

And the one below mine says #1? That's weird.

[Demit]

7. Apparently that's a glitch that happens when you post simultaneously

sometimes. I've seen this explained in the late, lamented ATA forum.

[jmm]

3. So visits with their children are now frivolous?

:wtf:

They may be convicts but like it or notb they are still parents

[mike_c]

6. that was my response-- what's a "frivolous visti?"

Soon they'll have to supply their own food, too, or starve.

[catnhatnh]

10. Well...

...if they choose to engage in frivolous eating...
Edit:sp

[blogbear]

4. Why must they be moved for a visit if it's going to cost money that

the incarcerated don't have? If everyone knows prisoners are 'detained' then why can't they be visited in a 'designated' area where they are already at? Just curious..

[MuseRider]

5. A frivolous visit

with a child? Cute. :eyes:

[firefox]

8. Aww, come on. Think of the children.

It just shows that the "Think of the children" in the drug wars is pure crapola, and that in everything it is someone protecting their racket/profits.

In a near-by jail they sell them cigarettes for $6 a pack and I am sure a canned drink is at least a dollar. And in NC they want to raise the tax on cigs by 75 cents a pack. They herald it as a way to cut teen-age smoking by a sixth. It will also raise $400 million, but the main thing that makes it brilliant legislation comes from thinking about the children.

[NYC]

9. Is this a privatized jail?

The page wouldn't load for me, and I'm curious.