By Julianna Brown/Capital News Service
A Virginia General Assembly House bill that will allow work done while incarcerated to count toward court fines and costs is headed to the Senate, with some bipartisan support.
Del. Cia Price, D-Newport News, introduced House Bill 16. Work while incarcerated is defined as any work done on or before July 1, 2023, by a person confined at a local, regional or state correctional facility who is paid under the Virginia minimum wage for their work. The individual shall be credited at the same rate as the community service work rate less any wages received.
Prior legislation allowed community service to count toward court fees, according to Price. Individuals were only allowed to use community service done before or after their incarceration sentence prior to the bill, Price said when she presented HB 16.
The Virginia Department of Corrections reported it initially needs $151,627 in general funds to support the proposal, according to the bill’s fiscal impact statement. This would cover the wages of employees needed to handle documentation of claims. The costs will reduce as the pool of retroactively eligible individuals is exhausted, the VDOC stated.
The bill passed the House on a vote of 72- 25 on Friday, Feb. 6. The measure passed the General Assembly in 2024 but was vetoed by former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“The bill does not change any of the functions that are underway,” Price said. “It just would require tracking of the hours of the work performed so that courts would know what of the fines or costs to discharge.”
Maisie Osteen, senior supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Justice Center, stated at a public testimony that one of her clients previously incarcerated at the VDOC earned no credit for the productive work he completed.
“His work included building furniture that's used in the General Assembly, that's used in our institutions, that's used in police K-9 vehicles,” Osteen said. “He left after 10 years and only paid off 6% of his court debt, despite working hundreds of hours on behalf of the people of Virgina.”
The proposal would allow formerly incarcerated individuals with court fees to get credit for work they have done while incarcerated.
The legislation would be a small step forward in reducing incarceration rates in Virginia, according to Jennifer Dalton, founder and director of the Virginia Justice Alliance. The cost is “astronomical” for families of incarcerated individuals, she said.
“The cost continues when they come home,” Dalton said. “The families end up paying for all of that stuff. I paid my ex-fiance’s fines and costs, so we didn’t have to worry about that when he got home,”
Inmates work for wages as low as 55 cents per hour in Virginia, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
The bill recognizes incarcerated work by allowing it to be credited at a meaningful rate, according to Kami Blatt, a policy analyst from The Commonwealth Institute.
“This reduces uncollectable debt and improves repayment and reentry outcomes,” Blatt said to the House subcommittee panel.
Inmates who were offered credit for completed work will also have something to look forward to, according to Dalton. If inmates are offered hope for things to improve, they will act more rationally while incarcerated, she said.
The VDOC stated it does not routinely comment on pending legislation.
Capital News Service is a program of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Robertson School of Communication. Students in the program provide state government coverage for a variety of media outlets in Virginia.
