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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: July 2, 2004
Reviewed:
Latest Update: July 9, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Searching in Criminal Justice

A friend told me that I would find some material I could use on poverty and incarceration at the Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, Inc. I ran a Google search and found the following link:

Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, Inc.

I've heard about a case in which a county sheriff imposed a five-dollar a day fee on all prisoners, even if they were too poor to afford it. I need the case. Can you find it for me? Try on your own, before you follow my walk-through.

Walk Through

• I tried a search for "prisoner charge" - found some references, but not what I was looking for
• I tried a search for "five dollars a day" - didn't find anything
• Since My supervisor has asked me about a case, and since there is a category: Relevant Court Decisions, I linked to that: BINGO. The last entry is about a Bristol County Sheriff who charged prisoners five dollars a day:

  "Fifth is the complaint filed in August, 2002, in Souza, et al. v. Hodgson, which challenges the Bristol County Sheriff's imposition of numerous unauthorized fees on prisoners in that county, the most outrageous of which is a five dollar per day fee imposed without reference to ability to pay or the source of funds. There is not a single paying prison job, not even ten cents per day, in Bristol County."

Souza, et al. v, Hodgson, complaint filed by Massachusetts Correctional Legal Sevices, Inc.