Richmond jail to start charging inmates $1 a day
Richmond's overcrowded city jail will start charging inmates $1 day to be there.
The charge takes effect Wednesday, said Lt. Col. Walter Allmon of the city sheriff's department.
"It's to help pay for the cost of operating the jail," he said.
It costs about $46 per inmate, per day to cover the jail's operating and administrative costs, city budget documents show. The $1-a-day charge could raise more than $500,000 a year toward the $30 million annual cost of running the jail.
Virginia has allowed sheriffs to charge inmates for their stays since 2003, and this year the legislature increased the maximum amount from $1 a day to $5. Chesterfield County has levied the $1 charge for two years.
Allmon said the money would be billed to inmates' accounts, which the jail sets up for them so they can have cash to pay for phone calls and snacks from the canteen. The money comes from what cash they have when they're arrested and from what their families send them.
Allmon said the sheriff's office won't sue inmates if they are indigent and don't have money. But he said any unpaid balance will carry over from one arrest to another, so if an inmate returns and has money in his account at that time, it will go first to pay off the charge.
The Richmond jail routinely houses nearly twice the number of men and women it was designed to hold when it was built four decades ago. Until recently, it was common for dozens of male inmates to sleep on mattresses on the floor of the jail's largest dormitory cells, but new triple-decker bunk beds have eased that problem.
Sheriff C.T. Woody has said hundreds of the 1,500 men and women housed in the jail on any given day shouldn't be there. Some are mentally ill, while others are awaiting trial on petty charges and can't get out because they can't afford even a $30 bond.
Pamunkey Regional Jail, which serves Hanover and Caroline counties and the town of Ashland, charges a fee for people serving weekends-only sentences; the fee generates about $29,000 a year. The after-hours desk deputy at Henrico County Jail-West said inmates there aren't charged.
Contact David Ress at (804) 649-6051 or
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Reader Reactions
Or stop putting money into his/ her account. Why make it easy for him/her to be there… might make him/ her think twice about being a criminal.
I’m tired of this “family loses” argument. If you don’t want to “pay for it” then don’t put money in his/her account. DUH!
inmatefamily… why don’t you convince your inmate instead to STOP BEING A CRIMINAL???
Doesn’t sound effective to me, the administrative costs of tracking the “dollar a day” will outweigh the money that is actually collected.
to toothpaste & t-shirts…
These are only provided to inmates who are indigent…not those who’s families put money in their canteen account.
Also, the cost for underwear, shower shoes, toiletries, etc., are unbelievably high and families are not longer able to buy them at K Mart. They MUST come from the canteen.
I agree that many famlies would stop putting money in these accounts if the jail was going to take $30 or so a month. I know I would!
Maybe I feel through the “rabbit hole” but these people cost me and other tax payers’ money on top of the hurt, pain and loss both emotionally & physically they have caused someone to get in jail. I know people are innocent until proven guilty but for every dollar they pay it more money I can use to help my family in these hard economic times
It’s a feel-good measure, possibly because Wooody will be running for re-election. Commenter Kaycee is right about it not deterring crime. When someone is so addicted that they need their fix, well the last concern they have is that the jail is going to charge them $1 per day! At the same time, I think the fee will recover some costs. Not very much—we’re talking chump change here—but it could recoup just a tiny bit.
It doesn’t matter what you charge, people are going to commit crime. The death penalty does not deter people from killing and a dollar a day won’t keep people from going to jail. Besides, what about those who either can’t or won’t pay? Then what? Keep putting them back in jail? Sounds good in theory, but not practice.
Yes,commit the crime do the time but what makes you think that charging them is the right solution when you have people there that as hard as their families may have tried and all the things that they gain to loose by going to jail don’t stop them from ending up there the jail gets monthly allowances per inmate down to foodstamps so now on top of that you want to take the families money also, because I don’t see any inmate putting money on his own account.We all know the economy sucks right now but we have to find better solutions. I love Woody but come on now.Don’t make us pay for all the new, nice things for the sgt.‘s and lieutenant’s
Toothpaste & t-shirts???
The canteen is for extras like snacks, etc.
Jail provides soap & toothpaste….
I’d rather have inmates paying their own way than see my taxes get hiked up. Whether that $1 comes from working and earning a tiny “salary”, canteen money, a payment system after release/ via probation, or is tossed in with court fees.
Maybe it will be an added incentive to make better choices.
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