Bill For Guest Services

As prices skyrocket upwards, locales are having increasing difficulties in meeting expenses. Of course, so are the residents. Crime is increasing, and so is the price of running the police forces, the courts, the jails.

Give it up for Dallas County. They have the solution. Charge the inmates for their stay in jail.

Would I kid you?

In a Dallas County budget crisis, everyone has to pay more for services – even jail inmates.

County officials want to charge misdemeanor offenders a daily $25 room-and-board fee while they serve their jail sentences.

It's never been tried here before, but state law allows it. It will be up to individual judges to decide whether to impose such a fee.

The problem is how to collect. The law doesn't provide a consequence for failing to pay. And indigent offenders can request the fee be waived.

Ron Stretcher, the county's criminal justice director, said that before judges can impose the fee, they have to consider other fines and fees owed by the inmate, whether the person is indigent, and whether he or she has been ordered to pay restitution for the crime.

But if offenders are able to pay, they should, he said.

"They need to pay their way," he said.

Commissioner John Wiley Price expressed doubt, however, about the county's ability to collect, given that more than $200 million in traffic and court fines remain outstanding. Mr. Price addressed the issue during Friday's weekly jail population meeting attended by county criminal justice employees.

Mr. Price said he supports the concept but doesn't think it will add up to a lot of money. The number of people who would be able to pay the fine, he said, is a "small universe." In addition, county officials are currently looking for ways to reduce the number of people serving county time in the jails.

I am waiting for the first prisoner to plead that he had to steal to pay his jail bill. Gentlemen, start your engines.

Now, what do you charge for false imprisonment?