CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - New Hampshire would no longer be able to seek reimbursement from prison inmates or former inmates for all or part of their incarceration costs under a bill up for a House vote this week.
The so-called “pay to stay” law has been on the books since 1996, and in recent years has generated an average of $102,000 per year. The House is set to vote Wednesday on a bill that would repeal the law, and the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committees recommended passage in a 20-0 vote. If it passes, it would go to the state Senate.
Republican Rep. David Welch, the bill’s sponsor, said allowing the government to target select inmates could saddle them with debt they can’t repay.
“The vast majority of state prisoners will be released into society, and it is in everybody’s interest to enable these people to reintegrate into society and become productive citizens,” he said in a statement. “Moreover, these provisions are rarely and inconsistently used.”
Almost all states allow inmates to be charged for room and board or medical fees during their incarceration, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute at the NYU School of Law. But under the New Hampshire law, the attorney general’s office can seek reimbursement if it determines that a current inmate has sufficient assets to pay for all or part of his or her incarceration costs. Inmates who object can request hearings, and courts are required to consider the inmate’s other financial obligations.
Former House Speaker Donna Sytek, who sponsored the 1995 bill that led to the law change, said her original proposal called for charging inmates co-pays for medical care they initiated and for the cost of property they damaged. The overall “cost of care” reimbursement language was added later, she said, and the rationale was that taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay if “a multimillionaire somehow gets sent to prison.”
In October, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire challenged the part of the law that allows the state to also seek reimbursement from former inmates, arguing that the provision lacks the same safeguards in terms of the ability to object and request a hearing. The organization filed a motion asking a court to dismiss the state’s counterclaim against Eric Cable, who sued the state in March alleging prison officials were negligent in not properly treating him for Type 2 Diabetes. The state denied the allegations, and filed a counterclaim seeking $119,000 for the cost of his incarceration.
The ACLU argued the counterclaim was a shameful attempt at retaliating against Cable, who was convicted in 2013 of causing the death of a Manchester man in a drunken boating accident on Northwood Lake the previous year. He was released from prison in 2017 after serving nearly four years for negligent homicide. But a Merrimack County Superior Court judge ruled this month that the state could continue trying to recoup the money.
According to the bill’s fiscal note, two inmates are currently paying their incarceration costs.
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