Man Saves $11,000 in Prison Wages, State Wants It Back

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/03/15/state-takes-away-prisoners-earnings/

Do you think he should be able to keep his money? I say YES!

He owes the state half a million dollars because of his poor life choices.

:shrug:

if you're gonna give him money, then yeah, it's his.

stolen from us and go after the little guys..

Because 30 years of forced labor was not a part of his sentence?

since the early 1700's. You want to start that shit up again?

at sub-minimum wages, too, i'm sure.

giving prisoners money and then taking it away from them is just fucking with them for the sake of fucking with them.
it creates justified bitterness in already troubled individuals and is guaranteed to make prison work programs less effective and increase the rate of repeat offenders.

if you're into really, really stupid public policy for the sake of saying "fuck you" to prisoners, them this is a great idea.


by the way, it's not remotely normal, decent, humane, rational or reasonable to make prisoners pay for the cost of their incarceration.

"poor choices" is a justification for taking away their freedom temporarily. it is NOT a justification for fucking around with them for your jollies.

That's what our tax dollars ae for - they pay for the prisons. If the prisoners had to pay themselves, the poor guy busted for smoking a joint in 1975 would never get a chance to turn his life around.

We release people wrongfully on death row so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that many times that amount are locked up on lesser charges.

Then you'd have to completely ignore the perverse incentives for not only prosecutors to seek victory rather than the present the facts but the cancerous spread of the profit motive. We've got judges straight up funneling and hitting people with improper sentences.

We have whole industries built around incarceration from actual prisons to contractors of all sorts to ATM type systems to send inmates money for the store and expenses.
The whole concept is treacherous in a capitalist country. Especially a somewhat cracked and vindictive country that has at minimum, a strong undercurrent of a demand the legislation of theocracy (fundamentalist at that) and more than a tinge of nanny statisim from all corners.

No way, no how.

Plus, it is just pure anti-rehabilitation and fucking grinch like.

First of all, prison labor is inherently exploitative. I'd bet they have made more than $455,203 *and fourteen cents* off of his labor in the past 29 years.

Second of all, the point of being paid any wage at all for what is essentially slave labor, is so that the inmate can go out to the world and have a little bit of money in their pocket, and hopefully get good housing and transportation and all that good stuff.

They are given food, shelter, entertainment, medical care, etc. We treat these fucking prisoners better than we treat veterans and the elderly. It costs over $40K to house a prisoner every year (More or less depending on the level of security). Making them do chores or work is not going to hurt them. For YEARS the Federal Penitentiary in El Reno OK was completely self sufficient. Made it's own food, dairy, raised it's own cattle, and had a large well. For the first time in their lives, they took pride in something, worked hard. Then someone decided it was cruel and unusual to make people work for their spot in the joint, and now all of it is voluntary and it costs far more to run the prison that it did before that person decided that. Makes no sense to me.
Oh, and my source? My father in law worked there for a couple of decades running the laundry.
And by the way, I think he should be allowed to keep his money.
Duckie

is the money those prisoners make for example, the CCA, the CCA then uses the money to lobby Congress for longer prison sentences so they can have a larger workforce and therefore make massive profits. Combine that with their .50 cent wages and it just rubs me the wrong way. YMMV of course.

casually transformed into a "debt" just one sentence later. Personally, I believe he should keep it, and this trend toward charging inmates is a travesty that does more harm than it does good...

He even uses the nice, BIG number of $455,203.14 (even included the 14 cents!) for shock value -- Hawkins has already lost any public support because the casual reader will see that number and think he had taxpayer-funded solid gold toilet seats...Of course, averaged out per year it's about $16,000...

But the 'debt' meme is bullshit to begin with...The state got decades of labor at a fraction of the market value...Trying to seize 11 grand just seems petty and short-sighted

if they don't then there will be nothing that will prevent the state to hand each prisoner 'a bill' when each prisoner is released!
And when that happens state's could imprison more people (to make a profit) and then ultimately garnish people's wages that they earn outside of prison to be put towards the debt.

It looks like a slippery slope to me!

It is quite slippery indeed!!

and a moron "tough on crime" warden of the local jail got the idea to charge his prisoners "rent" of like $20/week, which was about half of the prisoners' weekly wages -- Because you know; the state spends SO much money keeping you scum off the street and in our 4-star tropical resort...

The warden's bright idea lasted about a week, since one of the state's attorneys clued him in: By charging prisoners 'rent' the warden was elevating their status to "renters" with all the legal protections allowed to them under state law...

which other prisoners who work use for cigarettes and other items from the prison canteen. He saved his, instead, and it will provide him with the means to manage outside prison, something that will be extremely difficult for him after 29 years inside.

Yeah, he should keep it. It's not only something he earned and which should be a source of pride to a man who hasn't been allowed any for years, it's also something that will keep him from re offending.

to spend and make various purchases then, yes, he should have access to the funds - unless it was made clear to him (and other inmates) that they could not accumulate and withdraw funds when he leaves prison.

My guess is that he chose to forego consumption in an effort to accumulate some funds to ease his re-entry into society. That ought not be punished.

I'm guessing that the state doesn't pursue repayment of costs from other inmates or investigate assets those inmates might have available to pay for the costs associated with their incarceration. This guy ought not be singled out.

would make him less likely to offend. I really can't see his saving up his money as a bad thing. The fact that he saved all that money to me says that he was planing for a future on the outside the whole time and is less likely to do something that might send him back.

If the state wants to save money on it's prison system they can start by releasing and no longer charging pot smokers with a crime. They will save millions.

political prisoner's family is charged for the bulolet the state used to shoot him in the head.

Prisoners are required to spend their money at the company store. Saving money cuts into their bottom line.

that amounts to 1.88/hr. What was the profit margin on the work he preformed? Did it all go to the proper places? Or did someones pocket get lined nicely?

compared to Arizona DOC. I've seen anywhere from .30 to .70 cents per hour.

when a person is convicted of a crime. Most states take bank accounts and property ( if said property is not co-owned by a spouse or bank ) to "help" pay for the convicts imprisonment, never mind the fact that said convict, if he worked, paid taxes for said institutions. The reason this law is so little noticed is more convicts have no real property or money for the state to seize so few people realize how the prison system works on these matters. This only applies to people of the upper middle class down, the rich who end up in court already have their wealth transfered to family then if they are not convicted its is transfered back to them. That was why courts ruled in favor of drug dealers having money and auto's seized, there were already law's on the books to cover them doing seizures.

account's over $100, that is paying for room and board in prison. They will also seize any property that you own without a co owner, again not drug related seizures. It started with Nixon's law and order crap then later under Reagan/Bush it was expanded to cover drug arrests. Why were they allowed to do this? Because convicts have no rights and no property because they are wards of the state. These law's were enacted before drug seizure law's. Seizure law's are even worse because the money and property are taken upon arrest, the person hasn't even seen a judge before its seized nor is anything given back when the person isn't convicted in most states..

for him to work and save!

I say, release the 70% of prisoners now incarcerated in the U.S. for non-violent crimes and GIVE them each their portion of the imprisonment cost for bad "Prohibition"-type laws, draconian sentences and unfair convictions of the poor. GIVE it them! It's something like $35,000/yr. Or give them enough to live on for a couple of years and devote some of it to rehab, loans, job creation, counseling and other helps to ex-prisoners.

Our prison system is a disgrace. It is brutalizing and racist. We imprison more people for stupid shit than anybody in the frigging world. It is costing us billions and billions of dollars. It rarely does anybody any good. This man is an exception--and how ironical that the the state of Illinois wants to punish him for his diligence--for the system working in his case! He saved money. He thought of the future. But he is rare. Most prisoners live a day to day struggle just for dignity and survival--most often imprisoned for petty offenses. What they are really guilty of is BEING POOR. Give them the money which often goes to corrupt private contractors and to perpetuating a rotten, fascist system of depravation, humiliation and violence. Get them out of there! Put them on their feet. Show some PROGRESSIVE faith in the human spirit. It's time for an AMNESTY.

What a stupid thing for illinois to do. Or is everyone now going to be handed a bill when they walk out of prison?

Amendment...

Even I could argue that case.

Unless it's normal for the state to give released inmates a bill, then this is bullshit. This guy should be used as an example of what inmates SHOULD do when they are in prison.

he was productive and saved his meager pay. Good for him!! If they take it from him, they are thieves.

Welcome to DU. :)

What fucked up shit is this.

We are such a punitive nation, for some at least. Others, like war criminals & Wall St. bankers, not so much. Rule of Law is a joke in this country.

and attempted to kill two Chicago cops. Though I don't really see what the problem is with letting him keep the money, it'll probably be taken...and he'll get absolutely no sympathy from me.

Justice without mercy is tyranny.

he was sentenced to 60 years, he's still incarcerated, and isn't even up for parole until 2028..

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-15/business/ct-biz-0315-prisoner-wages-20110314_1_hawkins-case-stateville-correctional-center-inmate-work-program

And I don't believe in mercy for murderers.

If that isn't enough justice to satisfy you I can only hope you never get jury duty.

Henley is now 60 and he's been imprisoned since 1982...approximately half. I don't consider that nearly enough time for taking a life and attempting to end the lives of 2 others.

http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2010/10/25/an-illustration-of-left-vs-right/leftright_us_1416-gif/

The Right, Conservative has no empathy. And yes the graphic does explain the mentality of the "State" wanting to take of his money.

1. Those are the wages Hawkins worked for, and he is entitled to keep them, unless I'm missing something and IL claims all unspent prisoner accounts or something (which should still be illegal)

2. Shame on the reporter for putting in the RW-loving false equivalency meme on how much it "costs" the state to incarcerate Hawkins for almost 30 years...His time and manpower paid back the state at least three times that much during his term...

3. Is the state dense? Or is it that they have their heads so far up their penny-pinching bean-counting asses that they don't see fighting this in court is gonna cost a lot more than $11,000, plus the PR hit?

30 years this guy worked for sub minimum wages, which means the state profited off of this guy the whole time, and they want to take away the pittance he managed to save for himself under programs set up to allow for this?

How they include the cost of his stay but they don't mention how much money he made for the prison industry.

they pay him slave wages and then they're angry that he didn't blow the pennies on cigarettes, phone calls, and candy bars i guess

he earned the money, it's his