The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Meeting at an Austin hotel, the Texas Board of Criminal Justice unanimously approved a seven-year contract with Embarq/Securus Technologies to install the phones that will digitally record all calls for investigators to monitor.

Two other firms — Global Tel Link and Unisys — unsuccessfully bid for the project. Prison officials said while Global Tel Link offered a lower per-minute phone than the winning bid, the Embarq bid offered better, more secure technology.

"It will be the finest (inmate) phone system in the United States," said Board Chairman Oliver Bell, an Austin businessman. "We are the last state to do this. But we have learned from the other states what works and what doesn't, and our system includes all the best features."

Under the deal, roughly two thirds of Texas' convicts will be able to make calls for a per-minute fee — up to 15 minutes a call, for up to 120 minutes a month.

By some estimates, the state could earn more than $30 million annually in commissions from convicts' calls — 40 percent of the profits from the collect calls. The state Crime Victim's Compensation will receive the first $10 million and half of any additional profit. The rest will go to the state's General Fund.

Over its seven-year run, the contract could generate as much as $600 million in gross revenues, officials estimated.

Embarq officials said they plan to install around 4,000 pay phones in Texas' 106 prisons, each of which will require a voice-ID and PIN number to ensure only authorized convicts can make calls.

Pre-paid calls will cost about 23 cents a minute in-state and about 39 cents out of state. Collect calls will be 26 cents and 43 cents, respectively. Calls to cell phones will be blocked.

Prison officials said keeping the cost per-minute was a key consideration in reviewing the bids and, while Embarq had a higher fee, it offered better safeguards against misuse.

"The schedule calls for the system to be installed within seven and half months," said former state Rep. Ray Allen, an Embarq consultant. "We'll install about $28 million worth of infrastructure that the state will eventually own . . . This a great deal for the system and for the state."

The Overland Park, Kan.-based Embarq operates prison phone systems in 22 states, and hundreds of county jails — including about half of those in Texas. Securus Technologies, one of the largest independent providers of calling services to correctional facilities in the country, will provide the secure technology, officials said.

Thursday's vote reversed an historical no-phones policy in Texas prisons. In recent years, only occasional collect calls from state phones have been allowed — usually from wardens' offices, as a reward for good behavior.

In other action today, the board unanimously approved a $6 billion budget request to the Legislature that includes $453 million for pay raises for correctional officers and parole officers — the largest such hike in decades.

Next stop for the package is the Legislature, which convenes next January.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/08/15/0815phones.html