Legal Advocate pushes prisons for higher inmate pay

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Governor Andrew Cuomo's budget plan calls for a hike in the minimum wage, but no increase in the pay that prisoners make.

Fighting to get prisoners a pay raise may be an uphill battle, but one attorney is trying to make the case. It's been 20 years since NYS has raised the pay for prisoners, and most make 10-cents an hour and must work six hours a day, five days a week.

Criminal defense attorney Lori Hoffman said, "That's a long time. You work in the laundry, you work in the kitchen, janitorial stuff, there's all different things they can do."

Hoffman says if a prisoner is lucky he can be outsourced to make over a dollar an hour working at a call center for the Department of Motor Vehicles.

"You're calling into the DMV and you may be speaking to a convicted felon and not even realize it because they're answering your questions at the DMV," Hoffman said.

There are 55,000 people in New York's prison system right now.

"They get their three meals a day, their bedding and their basic toiletries," Hoffman said. "Everything else has to be bought through the commissary. How much has a bag of chips gone up in the past 20 years, just for us on a regular basis?"

She realizes that many people would say prisoners don't deserve a penny.

Hoffman countered, "Even though they are convicted felons, they are still human beings."

Human beings that taxpayers may have to support one way or another. Many of them enter prison owing hundreds in court fees, and if there's no way to work those off in prison, Hoffman says, "You're coming out in the hole just like you went in."

"Where's the first place they're going to go? They're going to the welfare office, they're signing up for food stamps because they have no other option," she noted.

Although Hoffman tries to make the case, the governor did not include a prisoner pay hike in the proposed budget, and it is unlikely the State Legislators would add such a proposal by April.