States step up demands to collect restitution

Colorado has developed an aggressive in-house system with about 100 collection investigators who begin working with offenders on repayment right away. It has doubled restitution collections in the past decade to $25 million.

"There's a fairly widespread misconception that, as a victim, you may get restitution ordered, but you're never going to see any of it," said Paul Litschewski, financial services manager with the Colorado Judicial Department. "But that's not what we're finding."

Payments lag in priorities
Across the country, a lot of the money is owed by people who are in prison and generally can afford no more than token payments. Large amounts are owed by ex-cons and others who are struggling to make ends meet.

Prosecutors say collections would increase if judges would declare people who do not pay in violation of their probation. But payment often falls behind other priorities, such as trying to keep released criminals employed, drug-free and out of jail. To many judges, jailing people for nonpayment smacks of debtor's prison.

Ed Katz, financial resource coordinator for the Pennsylvania Office of Victim Services, suggested the state deduct money from offenders' wages from the moment they are sentenced, place liens on cars or divert their tax refunds.

Katz said some repayment amounts ordered by judges are so small as to be meaningless: "I sure couldn't get a loan where I had to pay back $25 a month with no interest and have 46 years to pay it back."

A decade-old Pennsylvania law requires the prison system to collect 20 percent a month from inmates' account balances. It produced a tiny amount from Jeffrey A. Byington's time behind bars for destroying the church in Chambersburg.

Church member Ken Plummer Jr. said St. Paul's was under no illusion that Byington, now behind bars in Maine for sex crimes, would be much help.

"The idea of restitution," Plummer said, "was simply symbolic."

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