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Fremont Jail Offers Inmates To Pay $155 A Night For Quieter Stay

FREMONT (KCBS) — A new program is offering Alameda County inmates sentenced to misdemeanor offenses to serve their time in less-crowded conditions at the Fremont jail, for a price.

Under the unique "Pay to Stay" program, the Fremont Police Detention Facility will offer inmates eligible by a court order to stay at their quieter jail for $155 a night, with a one-time fee of $45.

Fremont's Optional Pay-To-Stay Jail Program To Cost $155 A Night

PHOTOS: Fremont Jail Upgrade

Spokeswoman Geneva Bosques with the Fremont Police Department said it isn't all peaches and cream for the inmates. "There are no mints or cookies on the pillow," she said.

"It is still jail and you would still be treated just like any other inmate that is serving time. There are no special treatments. You get the same meals that all the other inmates get. You get the same freedoms to make phone calls, to watch TV," Bosques said.

But the program, which has the potential to serve Fremont a financial boost, does have its critics. Carl Takei with the American Civil Liberties Union said it amounts to being a jail for the rich.

"It violates the principal of equal justice. The punishment that somebody gets should be dependent not on how much they can afford to pay, but on what the crime they committed was," Takei told KCBS.

Bosques said Wednesday that no inmates have used the Pay to Stay program so far.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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