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October 19, 2008
CA: Phone Companies Rip Off Prisoners Families
Phone Companies Rip Off Inmate Families
Phone Rates from Inside Jail Are Unregulated
By Charles Montaldo, About.com
An Investigation by the Associated Press in California has found that telephone companies and county governments have been bilking millions of dollars from the families of jail and prison inmates by charging high rates for collect calls home.
Those who are incarcerated in jail or prison in California cannot make direct calls outside, but must make collect calls. Rates for these calls are not regulated, therefore telephone companies can charge whatever rates they want.
According to the AP investigation, collect calls made from California jails are charged an average of seven times as much as the same call would be charged if made from a public pay phone. These charges total about $120 million a year on the phone bills of families and friends of county jail inmates.
The contracts for providing telephone services from county jails is so lucrative that telephone companies offer counties huge signing bonuses to let become their provider. Los Angeles County was paid $17 million in signing bonuses, the AP report said.
'Obscene' Telephone Rates
The counties get about half of the revenue from the calls, while the telephone companies keep the rest. The Associated Press investigation found that California counties received more than $303 million over the past five years in revenues from collect calls, calling cards and signing bonuses.
The higher charges are necessary, telephone companies claim, because jail telephone systems require specialized equipment and security features such as call blocking and monitoring.
"It's a gouging of family members, those who have never committed a crime," said Charles Carbone, a lawyer with Prison Focus, a prisoner rights group in San Francisco.
"It's obscene. It's a tax on a population that can't afford it," said Kay Perry, coordinator of the Equitable Telephone Campaign, which is lobbying to reduce phone rates in state prison systems.
http://crime.about.com/od/prison_families/a/inmate_calls.htm
Posted by lois at October 19, 2008 09:27 PM