New Mexico’s Department of Corrections is NOT Running a Hotel

I appeared on KRQE Channel 13’s news at 5:30pm yesterday (Monday) to discuss the case of an inmate who was allowed to stay LONGER than their sentenced time at taxpayer expense. An odd request under most circumstances to be sure, but taxpayers paid $128 a day to keep this individual incarcerated beyond their sentence.

We certainly don’t want this kind of thing to become a regular occurrence (as noted in the story), but as far as we can tell, this was a highly-unique situation were a potentially-violent, severely mentally-deficient person was kept longer because there was no other place for them to go and releasing them could have been dangerous for the individual and the public at large.

Problems could certainly arise if criminals simply wish to remain incarcerated to take advantage of the “three hots and a cot” or medical care that they are provided while incarcerated and that potential precedent is the primary concern we have. We don’t have any specific concerns with the Department of Corrections’ handling of this situation. See the story below:

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