NLG Files a Lawsuit with PLS Against Essex County Prisoners’ Fees

by Meredith Carpenter

In late September 2011, the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, in partnership with the law firm of Adkins, Kelston & Zavez, P.C. and Prisoners’ Legal Services, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of inmates at the Essex County Correctional Facility in Middleton, Massachusetts.  The lawsuit challenges illegal fees that Sheriff Frank G. Cousins, Jr. charges Essex County inmates.

These Essex County fees include a $30 medical processing fee that all inmates are forced to pay each time they are booked in the facility.  The fee purportedly is used to defray the cost of inmate health care, yet the medical processing itself consists solely of the administration of a TB test.  If an inmate does not have $30 to pay the fee, this amount is added to his account as a debt.  Any money he subsequently receives from family or friends is directly diverted to pay off the debt.  The facility also charges inmates additional medical co-payment fees that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled impermissible in county correctional facilities.

All of these fees overstep the boundaries established by Massachusetts law limiting sheriffs’ powers.  Undoubtedly, it is exceedingly important to keep these powers in check.  The realities of incarceration leave inmates in a vulnerable position, and sheriffs should not be allowed to exploit such situations financially.  Sheriff Cousins seems to be doing exactly that, as his personal website advertises that he maintains the “lowest cost per inmate” in Massachusetts – no doubt helped in large part by the medical processing fee he collects from each inmate booking.

In our suit, we seek to compel Sheriff Cousins to reimburse all of the fees he has illegally taken from Essex County inmates over the years, beginning possibly as early as 2002.  The case is entitled Bentley et al. v. Sheriff Frank G. Cousins, Jr. and is proceeding in Essex County Superior Court.

Meredith Carpenter is a 2L student at Cornell Law School.  This past summer, she worked as the intern for the new Litigation Committee of the NLG Massachusetts Chapter.

Through Barbed Wire

TBW invites you to participate in its monthly 4th Friday Prisoners’ Poetry Reading/Workshops
at Dimock Community Health Center’s Detox program in Roxbury, 6:30-8:30pm.

Members of “Through Barbed Wire” provide poems, mentoring, music, and refreshments
to the clients of Dimock’s Acute Treatment Detox Program.
If you would like to join us in the months ahead to read prisoners poetry, a poem, essay or
brief performance of your own, or would simply like to contribute presence and be inspired
by this collaborative event, please let us know in advance so that we can arrange for you
to be let into the facility.  We look forward to seeing you soon.
Otherwise, if you’d rather send copies of poems or writings that are relevant to addictions
and detox issues, we’d love to work with you on that as well.  Please include a brief bio
of the writer and your connection with her/him.  Send electronic copies to us at
throughbarbedwire@yahoo.com, or postal mail at Through Barbed Wire, PO Box 230417, Boston, Massachusetts 02123-0417.  For more information, visit http://www.arnoldking.org.
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“Through Barbed Wire” was created by Arnie King to (re)establish and maintain ties to our neighborhoods and to offer and provide genuine service to society.  Due to the heavy chains around our hands and feet, as well as CORI and other “stigmas,” such efforts face severe restrictions. These obstacles can be lessened, and eventually eliminated, with virtues of honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness flowing through barbed wire into the community.