CONVICTS TO PAY

Hokitika Guardian, 13 December 1935, Page 2

CONVICTS TO PAY

NO FREE BOARD IN MICHIGAN

Honest taxpayers of Michigan no longer are required to pay all the upkeep of convicted criminals. At its last session, the State Legislature enacted a law providing that, if they are financially able, convicts must pay to the State the cost of keeping them under lock and key. The law is modelled on the statutes in effect in several States, including Michigan and New York, under which inmates of asylums for the insane are required, when a hie, t o pay for their maintenance.

Under Michigan's new law, the State

may seek to reimburse itself for the cost of either old or new inmates. Tt is provided that proceedings “may be. begun at any time after admittance” to penal institutions, and collections may bo made over the entire period of confinement. According to “Correction,” the monthly bulletin of the New York State Department of Correction, “whenever a person is admitted to a prison the Attorney-General may file in the sentencing court a claim against the new inmate’s estate. Upon (Jourt order, 1 lie estate or property becomes liable to levy. Collections may be enforced in the usual way through foreclosure proceedings, but properties must not be sold at foreclosure until after 60 days

have lapsed a/ter a. filial court decree. “All prison warders and local la\tfenforcemeat officials are required to furnish ,on request, ‘all information available on the financal responsibility of the said prisoner,’ an dtlie Attor-ney-General or county prosecutors are empowered to ask for a guardian for the inmate.”

Inmates having small estates and dependents will continue to have their keep paid for by the State. “We will be careful not to levy upon an estate if it would force an inmate’s family to seek welfare assistance,” said Mr J. J. O’Hara, Auditor-General of Michigan, who advocated passage of the new law. “Such a situation would

not benefit the State.” Commenting on the new Michigan law, the) “New York Sun ’ says: “It is obviously just to require felons able to do so without 'pauperising tlieir families to pay their way in , prison--; INaturally, the professional criminal may bo expected to hide his estate as well as he can, but * concealed assets may sometimes be found by -diligent search. , “There is one. dfinger against which (precaution must be taken; jt is■ that convicts well-supplied with money may buy privileges they should not enjoy. However, as they often .do so now, this possibility is not a reason.', tor refusing to lift from -honest citizens a part of burden criminals impose on them.”