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Washington’s Department of Corrections has outlined new plans to spend $1.3 million collected from incarcerated people for phone calls and other fees — money that they’ve been criticized for sitting on, as the dollars are meant to go to improving prisoner welfare.
But the spending would still represent only a fraction of the $12 million the state has piled up in its Incarcerated Individual Betterment Fund. And prisoners’ families are dissatisfied with how the department wants to use the money.
Under the department’s plan, the dollars will primarily go to facility beautification projects, music programs and the “Washington Way” program, which focuses on making prison life similar to life on the outside.
While families are happy to see money going to things like toys in visitation areas for children, Monte said the dollars spent on beautification could have been used for things like raincoats, workout equipment and other basic quality of life improvements for prisoners.