Prisoners Plead for Reasonable Phone Rates

Lewis is one of dozens of inmates and their family members who filed comments in docket 12-375 on the commission’s NPRM on prison phone call reforms (CD Dec 31 p6). In handwritten letters from across the country, they plead for rate regulation to stop monopoly providers from squeezing already indigent inmates and their families. Deaf inmates ask for access to the Video Relay Service to let them communicate in American Sign Language. Prisoners’ rights groups rally against the prison “kickbacks” funded directly by the phone charges. But those payments go toward crucial inmate services, say state correctional institutions, like drug treatment or preparing inmates for release back into the general population. They say reducing prison phone call rates could have devastating consequences.

The brother of an Alaska state prisoner wrote to criticize the need to set up a prepaid account of $500 from which expensive phone calls are deducted, with one 15-minute phone call that can “typically cost me $30.” Given that parole boards consider “family ties” as a factor in granting parole, “that could mean he stays behind bars for an even longer period time,” the brother said. “Please do something about this injustice."

Deaf California inmate Kevin Carle pleaded for access to Video Relay Service instead of having to try to type furiously over the TTY system. “I not skill,” he handwrote in broken English. “I typing slow.” California inmate Harold Hagood said the TTY system takes too long, given that many of his friends and family are only fluent in American Sign Language. “I try to tell you the truth,” Hagood wrote, asking for reduced rates and access to VRS.

"Most Deaf people are not fluent in written English,” explains the Prison Law Office, a private California firm specializing in class actions on behalf of prisoners (http://bit.ly/Zm4AYL). This makes TTY devices inadequate for communication with family, but only a handful of prisons in Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin have videophones, the firm said. And many prisoners’ families no longer even use TTY devices at all, having migrated to videophones. “Because there is no way to call a videophone from a TDD/TTY, Deaf prisoners are left with no way to communicate with their families at all.” Several deaf and hard of hearing asked for proportionally discounted rates for TTY calls because they take longer than regular conversations (http://bit.ly/YQ4i93). Charging additional fees for the use of relay services is a “usurious” practice that’s “egregiously unfair,” the groups said.

As death row inmate Roger Gillett fights for a new trial, he’s also joined the fight against high prison phone call fees. It’s been eight years since he’s seen or spoken to his mother, he said. His mother’s “not being able to speak to her only child while I fight for my life has been emotionally devastating for us both."

An underground market is growing, Gillett said, spurred by the high prices for officially sanctioned prison phone calls. “I am not sure if people are aware of it or not, but it’s cheaper to buy a contraband cell-phone and use it for a few days than it is to call non-local numbers over the prison phone.” FCC action to lower the cost of long-distance prison phone calls could help change peoples’ lives, he said.

The high costs fund more than $140 million in kickbacks to the states, said the Justice Fellowship (http://bit.ly/10G70mg). Family ties are important to reducing recidivism, the prisoners’ rights organization said, urging the commission to “require companies to charge reasonable rates for interstate prison calls.” The organization collected over 4,000 signatures on its letter.

But prisons rely on that revenue to provide inmate services, several state departments of correction said. The South Dakota Department of Corrections uses the income to provide legal services, counseling and recreational equipment for inmates (http://bit.ly/ZlYSGr). And collect calls have always been expensive to operate, the SDDOC said, with its use of an operator, tariffed rates and additional termination fees between telcos. The “unique setting of jails and prisons” further adds to costs, as does the high volume of “uncollectible accounts,” SDDOC said. “By eliminating the setup fee and restricting the rate to a per-minute charge as proposed, the SDDOC would anticipate that our call provider would no longer provide” collect calls, which would itself negatively impact inmates, it said.

In Moultrie County, Ill., the prison allows unlimited phone calls between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. on a daily basis, said Sheriff Jeffrey Thomas. If the calling rates are lowered to a level that could allow continual use of inmate phones, it could become “very problematic,” Thomas said, “with some inmates monopolizing the phone,” leading to “altercations among the detainees” over the phone’s use. The sheriff’s office hopes to be able to continue to charge “at least” 50 cents per minute on “all friends and family calls,” to help with the prison’s “revenue needs,” he said.

"In Idaho, any revenues are used for the benefit of the inmates,” the Idaho Department of Correction said (http://bit.ly/YAmc3F). It supports “reasonable phone rates,” but cautioned against the unintended consequence of reducing inmate services. Prisoners there can use debit cards to make a 30-minute call for $3.40, the DOC wrote. Intrastate calls carry a flat fee; interstate calls have a flat fee plus a per-minute charge. These rates do provide for commissions, which go toward “the well-being of the offender population through an Inmate Management Fund,” the DOC said. Any changes in fee structures could reduce the services offered to inmates.

In Mississippi, prison collect call provider Global Tel-Link pays the Department of Corrections more than 60 percent of the gross revenue of the collect calls, the state said (http://bit.ly/X8cwPD). In FY 2012, that commission income totaled $1.6 million, and went toward family visitation, education, alcohol and drug treatment, and pre-release training. “Loss or decrease of this funding will negatively affect necessary programs for rehabilitation of offenders,” wrote Mississippi DOC Commissioner Christopher Epps. The loss of those services “will potentially increase recidivism."

"The rates and realities of inmate calling services are often unknown and misunderstood by those outside the field of professional jail practitioners,” the National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA) said (http://bit.ly/11E2a85). The association supports reasonable rates, but it’s “imperative” that sheriffs continue to be able to monitor the inmates’ communication, they said, warning against the “dangerous individuals in local jails” who use the inmate calling system to further criminal activities and intimidate witnesses. New communications technologies like Skype and FaceTime require “corresponding enhancements” in security measures, which can legitimately increase the cost of calls for inmates and their families, NSA said.