America’s Inmates Eagerly Await Covid-Relief Checks
At first I didn’t believe it. Then I checked the source: Sen. Tom Cotton.
Whatever you think of the junior senator from Arkansas, chances are he’s probably one of the few members of the U.S. Senate who actually paid attention during the marathon reading of the entire 5,000-plus-page Covid relief bill last week.
And yes, according to everything I can find, $1,400 stimulus checks will be going out to inmates. Just as they did with the earlier relief packages.
How did I miss this? How did you?
Perhaps it’s because we don’t listen to NPR. Last month the left-wing public broadcasting outlet aired a hand-wringing piece about how difficult it had been for criminals to get their government handouts:
After the CARES Act was passed in March 2020, the IRS determined incarcerated people were not eligible for stimulus payments.
Salahi’s (Yaman Salahi, a partner at the San Francisco-based law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein,) firm filed a class action lawsuit that successfully challenged the IRS's policy, and the government eventually dropped an appeal to the lawsuit in December. But Salahi said it is still very difficult for incarcerated people to receive payments.
"Incarcerated people are amongst the least-able to jump over all the hurdles and overcome all the barriers that have been placed in the way of trying to get these payments," he said. "They are required to somehow obtain tax forms, which are usually not available in prisons, figure out how to fill them out without the assistance of professionals, mail them in, and then receive the payment.
Salahi said getting the payments into inmate bank accounts has been a significant challenge.
"This issue with debit cards is consistent with a pattern of the IRS failing to work with state correctional authorities to ensure that stimulus payments are reaching the people they are supposed to reach," Salahi said. "We would hope that, given what happened with the first round of payments, they would have given more forethought to this and more attention to the issues that are unique to prison."
The IRS refused to speak with NPR for the story and the federal bureau of prisons would not comment on whether federal inmates got stimulus checks.
It’s clear inmates are eligible for the money, though, if they jump through the proper hoops. That means some of America’s most loathsome creatures - murderers, spies, rapists - are eagerly waiting for their checks.
Heck, $1,400 can buy a lot of contraband in prison.
It means the King of Ponzi schemes, Bernie Madoff - 11 years into his 150-year sentence - could be getting a check at his North Carolina cell.
It means Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber who planted an explosive device beside an 8-year-old boy and blew him to bits may be getting a check.
Likewise, Leslie Van Houton and Patricia Kernwinkel, two of the Manson family monsters, should be getting checks at their California prisons.
It means that Aldrich Ames, the notorious spy sentenced to life and serving his term in a federal prison in Terrell Haute, Illinois is probably getting a check.
It means Lee Boyd Malvo, the surviving half of the Beltway sniper duo that terrorized Virginia and Maryland for weeks at the conclusion of their nationwide murder spree that left 17 people dead and 10 wounded, is due $1,400.
It means Ted Kaczynski AKA, the unibomber, serving eight life sentences without the possibility of parole at ADX Florence, a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado is getting a check.
It means the Eastern Shore arsonists, Tonya Bundick and Charles R. Smith III, who are doing time for their fire-setting-spree eight years ago should be eligible for $1,400 each.
It means Kerri Charity, the North End rapist, sentenced to seven life sentences plus 80 years for a series of rapes he committed in 1993 should be getting a check sent to him at Wallens Ridge.
It means child murderer Shawn Novak, who in 1991 killed two little boys, one 7 and one 9 in the woods off General Booth Boulevard, and is serving a life sentence in the Red Onion supermax prison, should get his loot. If the Virginia Parole Board doesn’t free him first, that is.
According to Fox News Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Ted Cruz offered an amendment Saturday to block checks for inmates. It failed on a “party-line vote.”
"Prisoners have all their living and medical expenses paid for by the taxpayer, they don’t pay taxes, they don't contribute to the tax base, they can't be unemployed. Inmates are not economically impacted by Covid," Cassidy argued.
The IRS had tried to withhold stimulus checks from incarcerated individuals, but a court forced their hand to offer the checks in October. There was nothing written in the previous two relief bills or the one passed Saturday against inmates receiving checks.
It’s nice that these senators opposed the convict payments now. Where were they - and the rest of Congress - when the earlier Covid relief bills passed out tax dollars to inmates?
