Tuesday, February 15, 2011

'It's Absolutely Insanity'

As if California didn't have enough money troubles. Now taxpayers are on the hook for love letters from prisoners. To other prisoners. Yes, really.
10News discovered California taxpayers are footing the bill for California inmates to send love letters to other inmates.

"It's absolutely insanity," said Nina Ashord of Crime Victims United of California. "From a crime victim's standpoint, I find it extremely offensive and from a tax payer's standpoint."

Some letters described the sex acts female inmates promised to perform on their pen pals.

If an inmate can't afford an envelope, a stamp or paper to write on, the state will pay for it through the indigent mail program.

"I would tolerate that to have people have more appropriate connections that have them live better lives," said Kent Peters, who has corresponded with a death row inmate for 11 years. "The good it does, I'm sure, far outweighs some inmates playing some word games with their loved ones out there."

According to California's Department Of Corrections, Donovan State Prison in San Diego spends about $16,000 per year on the indigent mail program.

Although the Department of Corrections would not give 10News numbers for every prison in the state, sources inside the prison system said on average, the state's 33 prisons spend a total of $330,000 every year on indigent mail.

3 comments:

Blue Collar Todd said...

Don't worry, we can still afford to pay for a Super Bowl ad.

http://www.bluecollarphilosophy.com/2011/02/california-tax-payers-get-burnt-paying-for-anti-smoking-super-bowl-ad.html

msspurlock said...

I'm all for letting California suffocate in a puddle of its own excess.
Just let the state die.
I want to see them pulling their Priuses behind horses and living in their own filth, like the third world people they hypocritically exploit. I want to see them turn on Moonbeam and hunt him to the water's edge.
But they act like children and spend with no consequences because the federal government ALWAYS bails them out. Meaning OUR MONEY bails them out, with the money going toward unions, which are out to destroy America.
Don't do it. It's well past time for tough love. LET THEM STARVE.

James Hlavac said...

Every time I see one of these prisoner love stories -- this time letters -- other times even gals on the outside marrying murderers in for life and getting conjugal visits -- I think how odd it is that law abiding peaceful gay folks can't get married, and yet are taxed to pay the funding for this sort of nonsense for the most violently incorrigible. Because it's said we're immoral. So strange, Orwellian even.