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| Group files suit against fee charged to state prisoners |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/02/2004 |
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A volunteer group that provides support to Florida prisoners joined two inmates last Friday in filing a court challenge to a new $4 fee charged to inmates each month. The fee is linked to processing the cash account each inmate has for such transactions as buying aspirin or toothpaste. "It's the equivalent of charging them rent for their cell," said the Rev. Brant Copeland, with the Kindred Spirits Charitable Trust. Kindred Spirits works with death row inmates and their families. It donates about $10 a month to the prison accounts of about 60 prisoners. Some have no other income. Copeland said the $4 fee charged by the state Department of Corrections amounts to a 40 percent tax on the group's charitable work. "This fee poses an extreme hardship on the families of prisoners, many of whom struggle to make ends meet," Copeland said. "It is more than unjust. It is petty and mean-spirited." Legislators this spring authorized the Department of Corrections to impose a fee of up to $6. The class-action lawsuit, filed in Tallahassee, alleges the law violates a single-subject limitation. Corrections spokesman Sterling Ivey said last Friday the department was following the law, but had decided not to impose the full $6 because of the hardship to inmates. |
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