CHICAGO – It's been more than a month since legislation that would eliminate co-pays for doctor visits to prison inmates went to Gov. Bruce Rauner's desk for approval. Prison-reform advocates are calling for the governor to sign House Bill 5104 to get rid of the $5 fee inmates have to pay to get treatment.

Jennifer Vollen-Katz is executive director of the John Howard Association of Illinois, which independently monitors corrections facilities. She says many people who are incarcerated don't have the funds to pay for care.

"Many of the incarcerated people in Illinois are people that come from poverty, that do not have the means to see a doctor, to pay that $5," says Vollen-Katz.

People who work while they're serving prison sentences earn wages much lower than those on the outside, often less than a dollar a day. The Illinois Department of Corrections, which supports the charge, says its elimination would hurt those it aims to help by reducing the budget by $59 million over 10 years.

Inmates also must pay for essential items such as bars of soap and toilet paper, while sometimes only making nine cents per hour. Those in favor of the co-pay say it requires people in prison to share in their cost of care, for which the government pays thousands of dollars, and cuts down on unnecessary doctor visits.

But Vollen-Katz says the issue also impacts the general public, when those who can't afford preventive care leave the prison system.

"Ninety-eight percent of the people inside of our prisons are going to return to their communities. And living in environments where hygiene is difficult, where germs are spread easily, you create situations where health can be compromised."

According to the Prison Policy Initiative's 2017 study, the national average for states that charge a co-pay is $3.47, with Nevada leading the nation at $8 per visit.


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Alabama's reliance on fines and fees to fund state services can turn minor incidents such as a traffic violation into overwhelming debt for low-income residents.

To address the issue, Alabama Values, through its Justice in Focus initiative with the Beacon Center, is working to identify solutions. During a recent virtual panel, advocates and legal experts discussed how financial penalties contribute to poverty and proposed strategies to ease the burden.

Aylia McKee, chief public defender of Montgomery County, highlighted the root of the problem: how fines and fees are assessed.

"Some of the biggest troubles with the determination of funds is the failure to provide information about an individual's ability to pay," McKee pointed out.

A survey of nearly 1,000 Alabama residents found 83% had to forgo essentials such as medical care, food or transportation to pay their legal costs.

Judge Tiffany McCord of the 15th Judicial Circuit of Alabama, said the justice system is a balancing act, which aims to deter crime while maintaining public safety. However, she stressed courts offer alternatives to ease financial burden for those who seek help. McCord added stigma and embarrassment often prevent people from sharing financial struggles, making it harder to access support.

"We want people to know or understand that you can ask for your fines and court costs to be remitted," McCord emphasized. "We want people to know and to understand that you know you can ask to do community service instead of paying fines and court costs."

Richard Williams, executive director of the Beacon Center, runs the Next Steps Program, designed to offer another alternative. He described how the initiative supports people navigating the justice system through leadership classes, therapy and real world skills.

"We have trained staff persons who are walking with them and they're walking through things around financial management," Williams explained. "They're walking around things of how do we regulate our relationships "

While the Next Steps program has seen success in Montgomery County, advocates argued similar efforts are needed statewide. Panelists also called for legislation to ensure fines and fees are assessed based on a person's ability to pay and urged efforts to rebuild trust between communities and the courts.


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More than a third of Idaho's jails have failed their inspections but consequences for failing grades are unlikely.

The nonprofit newsroom InvestigateWest has created a database of inspections for Idaho's 35 jails over the past three years, showing 14 failed in 2024.

Whitney Bryen, injustice and vulnerable populations reporter for InvestigateWest, noted the inspections are not required, as in many other states. She said the Idaho Sheriffs' Association conducts the inspections and all the jails have voluntarily agreed to them.

"There is no state agency that oversees Idaho's jails," Bryen pointed out. "There's no mandated inspection of any kind in terms of someone from the state going in and checking on jails' conditions and how detainees in those facilities are doing."

Bryen explained the jails get a report after the inspection but it is up to the jails to decide what they want to do with the information. She observed many of the failing jails said it was not possible to pass because they do not have money for things such as building upgrades or new hires. Bryen added lawmakers have reached out since the InvestigateWest database was published.

Jails fail the inspection if they do not pass any of the Idaho Sheriffs' Association's eight standards. Bryen emphasized one of the standards is to have at least two deputies on duty at all times and some jails failed because they only had one on duty at certain times of day.

"That was a very common standard that was failed," Bryen reported. "In fact, every one that failed either had too many detainees or not enough staff and some of them faced both of those issues."

Bryen added nine jails did not pass the association's recommended standards, although this did not cause them to fail the inspection. She stressed standards in jails do not just protect the people who are incarcerated.

"It's not just a rule being broken -- and again, it's not a rule because they don't have to follow it -- but these standards are designed to protect the people behind bars and the deputies who are keeping those folks safe."


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Advocates feel Connecticut and the nation can enact legal system reforms in 2025, ranging from ways to more humanely treat incarcerated people to increasing investments in communities, rather than in the criminal justice system.

In Connecticut, some advocates pushed for reforms to parole so it is not as punitive.

Wanda Bertram, communications strategist for the Prison Policy Initiative, said while similar reforms passed in New York, they have stalled in Connecticut.

"There hasn't been much movement on that in Connecticut," Bertram acknowledged. "I think that's less because these aren't winnable reforms, it's more because legislators don't see criminal justice consistently as a priority."

Overall, she feels criminal justice not being a priority for lawmakers is why reforms do not often pass in statehouses. Connecticut's 2024 legislative session ended without major criminal justice reforms passed. One of the few related bills to pass was House Bill 5524, which allocates $25 million to youth justice centers.

While many reforms were goals from previous years, Bertram noted they are reforms with long-term benefits. One is restoring voting rights for people with felony convictions who have been released from prison. Connecticut is one of several states to restore the right in recent years but she noted some of this year's defeats can affect achieving next year's goals.

"The nation's rightward turn and its election of Donald Trump and far-right congresspeople is somewhat of a defeat in and of itself," Bertram observed. "Because the ideologies that are being promulgated by those new electeds are explicitly violent with, for example, new support for the death penalty."

Despite this and other defeats from this year, she emphasized 2024 brought plenty of positives, including Massachusetts being the first state to ban life without parole for people younger than 21, the Federal Communications Commission establishing new phone rates for prisons, and several states providing funding for public defenders.


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