Arizonans Must Pay to Visit Prisoners

That the news came out of Arizona was the first sign it wasn’t good. Prisons there have now been legally allowed to start charging 25 bucks to relatives and whoever else wants to visit someone incarcerated (that’s per individual visitor, not per prisoner visited). Ostensibly, this is a background-check fee, but what it really is, according to some, is discrimination. What it is more than anything, of course, is another way for the state to get money, however it is they can get it. They know people will pay on top of whatever it is they’ve already paid to travel, in order to see their friends and family, but what isn’t being calculated in the equation is what kind of recidivism this sort of policy will encourage. The director for the ACLU’s National Prison Project says, “We know that one of the best things you can do if you want people to go straight and lead a law-abiding life when they get out of prison is to continue family contact while they’re in prison. Talk about penny-wise and pound-foolish.” Something tells me that, as with all strange legislation that oozes from out of Arizona, we haven’t heard the last of this.