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| Inmates protest $5 daily fee by tossing human waste, flooding cellblock |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/11/2002 |
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Two Bristol County, Mass., jails were in lockdown Tuesday morning after inmates threw urine and feces and flooded cellblocks by clogging toilets to protest the sheriff's new $5 daily fee for prison services. The Ash Street jail in New Bedford and two of 12 units at the Bristol County House of Corrections in Dartmouth were placed in lockdown after the incidents started Sunday, said Sheriff Thomas Hodgson. No injuries were reported. Hodgson said the $35 weekly fee teaches inmates responsibility and eases the burden on taxpayers, who otherwise pay for the incarceration that costs roughly $100 per day. 'There's no reason inmates committing crimes ought to continue to be inflation free,' Hodgson said. Lawyers for inmates say the charges are counterproductive and illegal. 'If a state official, a sheriff or a register of deeds, wants to collect money from people, it has to be a statute that sets up the basis for the charge,' Peter Costanza, a staff attorney at Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services Inc. told The Standard Times of New Bedford. 'There's no such statute.' But Hodgson said 'we've researched it and we feel we have a strong legal argument that supports our position.' Hodgson, who was appointed sheriff in 1997 and was elected to the post the next year, has been sharply criticized by inmates and civil rights groups for his policies, which have included a ban on smoking and weightlifting and the removal of televisions from cells. For the last three years, he's been charging inmates $5 for haircuts and $5 co-payments for visits to the doctor. He also came under fire for bringing back chain gangs -- prison work crews with shackles and chains. Hodgson has repeatedly defended the policies, saying jail should not be a comfortable place. |
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