Who’s the Lawbreaker? State Laws vs. County Jail Accounts
Bill Martin May 8, 2019
[reposted from justtalk blog]
On any given day there are hundreds of local families with loved ones caged in the Broome County jail. Talk to any of them and you quickly find out how costly it is to sustain the lives of those inside. Want to call your neighbor locked up? A recent call of less than 7 minutes to my local phone ran $11.00. Want to keep your young friend fed, when he, like others, tells you of the thin meals leaving him hungry all the time? You need to send in money so he can buy Ramen from the jail commissary. Want your partner to have soap or shampoo?
The incarcerated have to pay for it, one way or another.
Dig a little deeper, and you find out one reason for all these cross-cutting costs: the corporation that profits from commissary deposits (Access Corrections) provides the food services (Trinity) and care packages (Access Securepak): it’s a vertical monopoly. Try to bypass all this and mail in a bra, as permitted by state law? Forget that: it is returned to Amazon, rejected by jail authorities.
Deposit money in your young Black friend’s account and you think he will then get to buy Ramen or shampoo? Don’t count on it, for if he is sent to solitary for an unknown reason (as is often related to be the case), that’s a $25 charge, for each solitary trip, even if the charges are years old. Puzzled by why so many inmates have unkempt, wild hair? Well, if your son needs a haircut and you have put money in his account, that’s a $10 charge. He’d rather forego the haircut and spend the $10 on food, stamps or soap. Want the clothes, wallet and cell phone your daughter came into jail with mailed back to you? That’s a $20, $30, $40 charge. And so it goes.
Deposit $50 or $100 in their jail account, and your friend or loved one may not see a penny of it.
And hundreds of local residents linger for months and months in the jail, with 80% of them unconvicted. Even if there are no fees or charges, many families don’t have the money to support and stay in contact with their loved ones. This is a poor person’s, a debtors’ prison, particularly for Black and Latinx residents of the county. Most inside are trapped by high bails, coming as they do from Binghamton, with a poverty rate (33%) much higher than New York City (20%).
Profiting from Hunger, Profiting from Inmates
But where does the money friends and family send in to jail accounts go? It is hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. How much is charged in fees, and who uses the money? We don’t know. Some basic facts can however be uncovered, leading to yet more questions about the jail’s finances and the lack of local or state oversight.
The State Commission of Corrections mandates that jail and prison commissaries must be organized to produce “a modest return above costs.” This doesn’t seem to apply to the Broome County Jail. The prices the Sherriff pays for goods are hidden, but surely must be bulk rates from what little we can find out. Compare jail prices to similar food and hygiene purchases at the local Walmart/Sam’s Club, where the profit rate is 2.1% on sales, and what does one find?
The jail’s profit ranges from 230% for a Bible to 560% for Ramen to 600% for a towel
| Item | Commissary | Walmart/Sam’s Club | Jail Profit |
| Towel | 5.95 | 1.01* | 600 % |
| Ramen | .95 | .17 | 560 % |
| Washcloth | 1.00 | .23* | 430 % |
| Decaf Coffee, 1 stick | .50 | .15 | 330 % |
| Grape Jelly 1 oz | .40 | .13 | 307 % |
| Kit Kat bar | 1.70 | .58 | 290 % |
| Holy Koran | 27.95 | 10.00 | 280 % |
| Holy Bible | 11.50 | 5.00 | 230 % |
| Macaroni & Cheese | 1.50 | .80 | 187 % |
| Playing cards | 2.35 | 1.33 | 177 % |
| *actual county contract price (2017) | |||
And what was the” modest profit” produced? It’s hard to tell: we need more information on kick-backs from contracts and overall profits. But records obtained in response to a freedom of information act request on profits show disbursements from commissary of over $102,000, on sales of $318,000.
If Sheriff Harder was Sam Walton, this $100,000+ would be reduced to less than $7,000.
Has the Sheriff not read state laws and regulations?
Such vampire profits contravene state law. The State Commission of Corrections sets clear regulations for county jails, including the provision of hygiene items, accounts for the incarcerated, and the handling of commissary sales and profits. It is hard to see how Broome County follows them.
Consider the following, starting with commissary regulation 9 CRR-NY 7016.1. The state is clear, “The prices of any items offered for sale shall be set by the sheriff… and will provide a modest return above costs.” So why are prices 2, 3, 4 times higher than costs, and profits so massively excessive?
Where do the profits go? The state is clear here too: “Profits resulting from commissary sales shall be… utilized only for purposes of prisoner welfare and rehabilitation” (emphasis added). That sounds good. But are they? Where did the profits from selling over $45,000 of cheap Ramen go? Were they spent on education materials? Job training? Books?
It isn’t easy to tell. But here are a few of the items that the Sheriff reported being spent from commissary funds last year (taken from a Freedom of Information request):
Three garden tractors $ 9,357
Indigent hygiene, intro packs $ 24,000
Agway lawn & garden supplies: $ 2,238
Flares $ 2,523
Haircuts $ 1,800
Copier lease: $ 960
Tires and parts for a trailer $ 700
Garden tractors and lawn supplies as meeting welfare needs of the incarcerated? There is no food garden, although one could be used. Flares to light the way to further rehabilitation? Copier leases to provide for the incarcerateds’ welfare support, when persons inside already pay 25 to 50 cents per copy in the law library? And $24,000 for hygiene/indigent packs given to people when they are processed into the jail? Has anyone read state regulations 9 CRR-NY 7005.6NY-CRR and 9 CRR-NY 7005.4 that require the facility to provide food, hygiene, and indigent haircuts at facility expense?
It gets worse. This year the jail withdrew from commissary, for reasons that local citizens and even legislators cannot discern, the ability to buy from the commissary clean underwear, bras, and thermal shirts (necessary in the underheated cells of the jail where the use of blankets is banned during the day)–and this even though the most recent commissary list provided by the county shows them on sale.
Persons working in laundry confirm that underwear is old, stained by body fluids, and not adequately cleaned. Bras, laundry workers have stated, are so old, torn, and dirty that they are almost unrecognizable as they go through the wash. State regulation 9 CRR-NY 7005.7 clearly states that bras are permitted to be sent to women from outside vendors. But when even this was attempted from Amazon, an approved outside vendor, the jail refused delivery.
These miserable situations have been reported to the county executive and local legislators to no avail.
Who will enforce state rules and a common sense of decency for women and men in the jail?
What happened to the County Auditor?
It isn’t the county, which says it is fully aware of state regulations. State regulations require regular audits of the jail. And year after recent year the Broome County Department of Audit and Control, headed by Comptroller Alex J. McLaughlin and the Chairman of the Legislature, has dutifully fulfilled this responsibility to ascertain, in their own words, “whether commissary funds are being used and accounted for properly in accordance with State Corrections Law.” The findings? “Based on the results of our examination, it is our opinion that the Sheriff’s Office is in compliance with State Law regarding the commissary fund.” Is there something missing in the jail records and accounts that might sustain such a conclusion?
Ask the County and the Attorney General
It is time to ask county and state authorities, including the New York State Office of the Attorney General which oversees jail operations, and the State Comptroller which oversees contracts, to investigate–and ensure the county and Sheriff follow state law, if not common standards of humane treatment for those suffering in the jail. There are too many anomalies, too many accounting irregularities. We need to know:
- Why are jail prices for commissary items so high, and profits so excessive?
- Why are profits not spent on “rehabilitation and welfare” as required by state law?
- Why does the jail not provide basic food and hygiene needs as required in state law?
- Why have not annual audits by the county not enforced state laws?
- Where does the money sent to inmate accounts go? How much is charged in unaccounted fees?
- What is the return on jail contracts for food, telephone, and commissary purchases—and why aren’t contracts posted on the county purchasing website like other contracts?
May 8, 2019
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Note: this post will be updated and corrected as as more information arrives, particularly regarding county contracts with private firms operating in the jail. Updates at www.justtalk.blog from which this is reprinted.