• Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    19·
    10 hours ago

    This is an interesting followup piece of the publication that broke the original story:

    https://www.al.com/news/2018/12/heres-how-federal-inmates-made-an-alabama-sheriff-15-million.html

    Some noteworthy pieces of information imho:

    • The total sum “leftover” after underfeeding and badly feeding was in the millions.
    • Keeping the Alabama “leftover” money was legal under state laws, for some crazy reason.
    • They also had a federal contract to keep ICE prisoners, and got federal money for that, which they did not treat separately from the Alabama money.
    • Another Republican (Jonathon Horton) unseated that swine Todd Entrekin in their primaries two to one.

    Then in 2019 the food account was finally made into a public one by the state legislature, 25% of it could still be misappropriated to other law enforcement activity though. Then in 2020 the was a referendum in Etowah county to make that percentage 100%, but I can’t find out how it went in the end. The Gadsen Times are blocked for European readers.

    https://www.al.com/news/2020/03/voters-in-2-alabama-counties-to-consider-jail-inmate-food-funds.html

    • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      6 hours ago

      What galls me about this, even more than fat sheriffs getting fatter by starving people, is the inference that since they’re following the law it’s all totally okay. I have an ideological problem not just with that statement, but the sentiment behind it.

      • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        4 hours ago

        The part of the article saying they get $2/day to feed prisoners, yet the Sheriff “guarantees they are properly fed” and somehow skims $750,000 out of it

      • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        5·
        6 hours ago

        Yes! The worst was this quote by Entrekin, hiding behind the law acting as if that’s all that matters:

        “It’s the law. I haven’t done anything wrong,” Entrekin said at the time. “If it’s wrong, somebody needs to change the law. I have asked [state legislators] to change the law and they have not changed it.”

        I’m with you on this one, just yesterday on a different post I said as much: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/25358559/14482392

  • Warl0k3@lemmy.worldEnglish
    63·
    15 hours ago

    If I remember right, this wasn’t even illegal. A lot of places in the US still have this ancient (and fucking ridiculous even back when it was new) rule that the sheriff gets to pocket any leftover cash from the prisoner care budget.

    Yeah, anyways this is usually the reason behind it whenever you read anything about prisoners being fed roadkill or spoiled food or whatever. Ancient, incredibly brazen corruption.

    • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      14 hours ago

      the sheriff gets to pocket any leftover cash from the prisoner care budget

      That’s utterly insane.

      • Dnb@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        131·
        14 hours ago

        It was likely meant to be used for other means to buy what is needed. But clearly not written well to stop corruption

        • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          4 hours ago

          Not at all, that’s the purpose. The article says this law was defined a century ago. It was the sheriffs personal responsibility to feed prisoners, so there was money set aside to do so.

          Certainly the law is not reasonable as soon as they got beyond the money coming from someone else, the town getting bigger, we have supposedly developed as a society, it’s no longer a frontier town