[Pen-l] Crime & Punishment 2009 style

["Jim Devine" <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

January 9, 2009 / New York TIMES

As His Inmates Grew Thinner, a Sheriff's Wallet Grew Fatter
By ADAM NOSSITER

DECATUR, Ala. — The prisoners in the Morgan County jail here were
always hungry. The sheriff, meanwhile, was getting a little richer.
Alabama law allowed it: the chief lawman could go light on prisoners'
meals and pocket the leftover change.

And that is just what the sheriff, Greg Bartlett, did, to the tune of
$212,000 over the last three years, despite a state food allowance of
only $1.75 per prisoner per day.

In the view of a federal judge, who heard testimony from the hungry
inmates, the sheriff was in "blatant" violation of past agreements
that his prisoners be properly cared for.

"There was undisputed evidence that most of the inmates had lost
significant weight," the judge, U. W. Clemon of Federal District Court
in Birmingham, said Thursday in an interview. "I could not ignore
them."

So this week, Judge Clemon ordered Sheriff Bartlett himself jailed
until he came up with a plan to adequately feed prisoners more,
anyway, than a few spoonfuls of grits, part of an egg and a piece of
toast at breakfast, and bits of undercooked, bloody chicken at supper.

The shock in the courtroom on Wednesday was palpable: a sheriff was
going to jail — if, as it turns out, only for one night — because his
prisoners did not like the food. The world was upside down.

"You're never going to satisfy any incarcerated individual," grumbled
the head of the Alabama Sheriffs Association, Bobby Timmons. Besides,
Mr. Timmons said, "an inmate is not in jail for singing too loud in
choir on Sunday."

Melanie Velez, a lawyer for the Southern Center for Human Rights in
Atlanta, which represents the inmates, took a different position. "Our
clients, all they want is sustenance," Ms. Velez said. "They shouldn't
be punished by not being given adequate nutrition. After every meal,
they are hungry."

The sheriff's defenders, like Mr. Timmons, said Sheriff Bartlett, who
told the court his salary was about $64,000, was merely following the
law — Alabama law.

more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/us/09sheriff.html
-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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