Sheriffs ask lawmakers to pass jail costs on to inmates

Jennifer Coleman

Thursday, Feb. 11, 1999 | 9:14 a.m.

CARSON CITY - The Washoe County sheriffs department wants lawmakers to let them bill for the cost of booking and releasing all people arrested and eventually convicted of crimes.

Under SB114, the department - and any other county sheriff around Nevada who wanted to - could also bill for running inmate work programs.

The Washoe County jail already charges inmates for room and board, but not for the cost of booking. And people who are arrested but make bail and don't get jail sentences aren't billed anything for the time spent taking mug shots and getting their fingerprints.

But Washoe Sheriff's Capt. Jim Nadeau told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that people who don't spend time in jail cells still cost the taxpayers money.

The jail books between 23,000 and 25,000 people each year, and the department figures about 5,000 would be able to pay the booking fees. Estimating $67 as the cost to book someone, that works out to more than $300,000.

"In order for us to charge them, four things have to happen," Nadeau said. "They have to be arrested, they have to be booked into the facility, they have to be convicted and they have to have the ability to pay."

But David Gibson, a Clark County public defender, said the bill would add another burden to people who can't afford it.

"The majority of people in the Clark County jail would be determined to be indigent. If they had a job when they went into jail, they probably don't when they leave," Gibson said.

Sen. Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, said those who couldn't afford to pay the costs could opt to do community service instead, but Gibson was unconvinced.

"I don't know how doing community service in addition to their sentence will help the jail," he said.

The Judiciary Committee also heard from Nadeau on SB115, which would allow the jails to charge prisoners for costs associated with alternatives to jail, such as work or house arrest programs.

Currently, if a person is convicted, sent to jail, and then released on a work program, the jail can recover from the convict $25 for processing the paperwork and $8 a day for administration costs.

But if the courts sentence the convict directly to the work program, the jail still administers the program, but can't charge the convict, because he isn't technically an inmate.

Nadeau said this also creates a problem with enforcement. If jail inmates fail to show up for a work program, deputies can pick them up and return them to jail the next day. But if convicts assigned to the work program by the courts fail to show up, they go back into the court system instead of jail.

The program has been popular with jail administrators and with the courts. Washoe County has 627 people on work programs, Nadeau said.

"It's a good program that allows them to be with their family, go to work, be a productive citizen and do those tasks we normally would have to pay others to do," he said.