STATE WANTS FORMER INMATE TO PAY COST OF INCARCERATION

BETHANY - After more than two years behind bars, recovering narcotics
addict Kathleen White figured she'd paid her debt to society.

She was wrong.

In early January, White received an unexpected correspondence from the
state Department of Administrative Services: an itemized bill for $67,165,
which the Department of Correction says was the cost of her incarcerations.

"I'd heard about that, but I didn't think they'd do it to anyone who didn't
win the lottery," White said ruefully during an interview at her mother's
home in Bethany. "How dare (they) charge me to be treated like a dog?"

White, 36, served time on charges of possession of narcotics and violation
of probation.

White and her attorney, Jack Keyes of New Haven, maintain White drew
attention to herself by filing a civil lawsuit against a former friend's
landlord. The lawsuit alleges the landlord's oven blew up in White's face,
causing her serious injury.

Keyes believes he has a good chance of winning a substantial sum for White.
Unfortunately for his client, the Department of Correction is entitled to
half of any money White wins from that lawsuit, and White said the state
medical insurance program is after the other half.

White said she doesn't mind paying for the cost of her medical care over
the years in prison. But paying the Department of Correction for her
incarceration is another story.

Keyes says the department is making the claim under a rarely enforced law
that allows the state to recoup the cost of incarceration if an inmate wins
the lottery, inherits a substantial amount of money or wins a legal claim.

"I think, before this case, I had seen (the law) applied once in my life
and heard of it maybe 10 times," Keyes said. He added that it's usually the
assets of welfare recipients, not former prisoners, which the state is after.

But Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the Department of Correction, indicated
the practice is a lot more common than that. The department recovered more
than $1.3 million from former inmates in 2004, he said.

Laws on such collection from inmates vary from state to state, and can
include trying to recoup medical costs, room and board, and clothing,
according to information provided by the National Conference of State
Legislatures.

According to the itemized bill White received from Connecticut, she owes
$25,970 for an 8 1/2-month incarceration in 1999, $17,778 for two stints
behind bars totaling about six months in 2002, and $23,424 for an
eight-month sentence that ended in June 2004.

During that time, White maintains she was incarcerated in barely livable
conditions at the York Correctional Institution in East Lyme, working for
pennies an hour, and said she was forced to buy necessities such as shampoo
and toothpaste at vastly inflated prices at the prison store. When inmates
spend their days compiling records for state databases, White says, they're
paid 30 cents an hour - a significant savings for the state. Yet the state
expects her to pay back the full cost of every day she was incarcerated.

Garnett confirmed that inmates working at Datacon, York's data entry
training program, make an average of 35 to 40 cents an hour, and inmates
doing non-vocational work make between $0.75 and $1.75 per day. He also
confirmed that they're required to buy soap, shampoo and other necessities
at the prison store, but he said prices are not inflated. He also said low
inmate wages and recouping the cost of incarceration from inmates like
White are unrelated issues.

"The Department of Correction, in cooperation with the Department of
Administrative Services ... does look for inmates who have the ability to
pay the cost of their incarceration," Garnett said. "If we find out, for
example, through mail review or through telephone monitoring that someone
has significant assets, we pass that information on to the (DAS)."

He noted that both inmate wages and the department's right to bill for the
cost of incarceration are set by statute.

If the DAS isn't successful in collecting, claims are sent to the attorney
general. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said his office has prosecuted
about 20 collection cases against inmates in the past five years, for
amounts ranging from $20,000 to $140,000.

"Only a small percentage of prisoners in Connecticut prisons ... have
sufficient assets to pay for incarceration, but when claims are referred to
my office, we pursue them in court if necessary," Blumenthal said.

"My main interest is that the law be enforced uniformly and fairly, and we
endeavor to do so whenever the Department of Correction asks us to collect
money from an inmate."

He said the state tries to seize the money "without unduly burdening
individuals who are trying to rehabilitate and recover and pursue
productive lives." Blumenthal said he's not familiar with White's case
because it hasn't been referred to his office.

White said she is feeling unduly burdened. Now that she's on the radar
screen, she expects the Department of Correction will be after her mother's
house if she ever inherits it, along with any other large or small windfall
that comes her way.

"Like anything else, once the file comes to the forefront, it's in the
forefront," Keyes said. "It's better off being in the back row than in the
front row."

A former nurse, White says she's lost "my home, my car, my boyfriend and
basically my life," since her narcotics addiction began after brain surgery
in the early 1990s. Now, she says, the state is only making it more
difficult for her to put her life back together.

She blames no one but herself for the problems that sent her to prison, but
said that now, because she is a felon, she has not been able to find work.

"How am I ever going to get on my feet if they're going to take over
everything I get?" she asked.