Forget staying at jail for free &045; Freeborn County may start charging inmates for their time.

&uot;I don’t think we are going to collect a lot of money, but we will collect money,&uot; said County Administrator Ron Gabrielsen. &uot;The vast majority of people that go to jail don’t have any money.&uot;

The program, if approved by the county commissioners, would charge $20 per day for work-release inmates and those serving out other sentences, but not those awaiting court dates. Work-release inmates already pay $10 a day.

Critics say the program could put some people into further financial straits, making it increasingly difficult to make the transition to normal life. But with the county looking to patch a hole in its budget, the fees would help fund a county government that is still figuring out what to do with its deficit. The money would go into the general fund.

&uot;This is another slap of the hand of someone that commits a crime,&uot; Gabrielsen said. He said the payments will act as a deterrent. Gabrielsen said he thought the commissioner would approve the new program.

In 2002, inmates spent more than 3,000 days serving sentences. Regular inmates spent an average of 21 days in jail, and work-release inmates stay an average of 27 days. Based on those numbers, the average inmate could owe between $420 and $540.

But County Jail Administrator Steve Westland warned that using the total number of days in jail won’t project the actual revenue.

He said he expects few people to pay the fee. &uot;Ten percent would be a good amount,&uot; he said.

He said other counties that have used complicated fee scales and in-house collection have found they spent more than they took in.

&uot;We just want to do it as simple, as cheap and as efficient as we can,&uot; he said.

With an eye on that end, the county would hire a collection agency to administrate the payments, making the penalty for nonpayment a bad credit history. The collection agency would take a percentage of the collection.

He said that while some counties have charged as much as $65, the county will likely charge $20 because it’s considered to be reasonable.

Nonetheless, he said the program could create some hardships on the poorer inmates.

Carol Weissenborn, chief public defender of the third judicial district, said, &uot;There’s

a limit to how much funding government services can be put on the backs of poor and indigent people.&uot;

She said that bad credit will follow an inmate well beyond their sentence, causing them to have trouble getting an apartment, buying a car for work and finding a job. She said the plan is short-sighted and would add to the spiral of poverty, and might lead to further crime.

&uot;It’s in the interest of everybody to let people move on,&uot; she said.

(Contact Tim Sturrock at tim.sturrock@albertleatribune.com or 379-3438.)