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March 21, 2009
Louisiana’s prison telephone rip-off
Louisiana’s prison telephone rip-off
Ronald Fraser
Guest Columnist
Published: Friday, March 20, 2009
Prison inmates who use the telephone to maintain strong family ties will be better prepared to rebuild their lives upon returning home.
Why then do Louisiana elected officials allow price gouging phone companies to drive prison telephone rates sky high, isolating state inmates from the outside world?
The cost of long distance calling has dropped drastically for most people in Louisiana, but not families of inmates. According to the Federal Communications Commission, nationally, domestic interstate calls in 2006 were billed at just six cents per minute.
Yet the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Campaign to Promote Equitable Telephone Charges, reports that the families of Louisiana inmates pay Global Tel*Link, Louisiana’s current prison phone service monopoly, much more.
For a 15-minute call, including per-call and usage charges, the Campaign calculates that inmate families in Louisiana pay 35 cents per minute for intra-state long distance collect calls, and a whopping 47 cents per minute for interstate collect calls. A similar interstate call using a debit, or pre-paid, card would cost a lot less but Louisiana prisons do not permit the use of debit cards.
In other states inmate families pay less per minute for 15-minute collect interstate calls: Florida, 12 cents; Michigan and New York, 15 cents; Missouri, 17 cents and 18 cents in New Hampshire.
These Louisiana rates include “commissions” (a.k.a. kickbacks) negotiated during the contracting process and paid to state prison operators as a percentage of prison phone revenues. Eager to win lucrative contracts competing phone companies in the U.S. sweeten their bids by offering generous kickbacks, some as high as 65%.
Only seven states -- Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma and Rhode Island -- do not accept such commissions from phone companies and pass the savings on to inmates.
While competition among phone companies in the open market drives long distance calling rates down, competition in the prison telephone market, with help from greedy phone companies and uncaring prison operators, actually drives rates up for inmates and their families.
Studies on file with the FCC show that nationally, including special security features attached to prison phones, it costs phone companies between 12 and 17 cents per minute to provide interstate collect calling, and between six and 12 cents per minute to provide interstate debit calling. These estimates include transport and termination costs and six cents for collect calls to cover billing and uncollectible costs.
Using these cost estimates, in Louisiana Global Tel*Link is making a profit on collect interstate calls in the 63-74% range. Nationally, estimates are that prison phone companies make similar profits on these calls.
It’s not that no one has noticed the prison telephone rip-off. The 2006 Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons reported that inmate phone rates are “extraordinarily high” and that lower rates will “support family and community bonds.” Even the American Bar Association has formally called for inmate calls to be set at the “lowest possible rates.” And the American Correctional Association says sound correctional management includes reasonably priced phone services.
Perhaps the low rates in Florida, Michigan and New York will shame phone companies and prison operators in Louisiana and many other states into ending their abuse of prison inmates and their families. But just in case these phone companies and prison officials are, in fact, shameless, Martha Wright and other inmate family members have filed a formal proposal asking the FCC to use its authority under the federal Communications Act to impose a reasonable interstate phone rate in all U.S. prisons.
Following a review of industry costs and the low rates now charged in several states, the proposal asks the FCC to mandate that inmates making interstate collect calls are charged no more than 25 cents per minute, and interstate debit calls no more than 20 cents per minute. The proposal also asks that the debit calling card option be provided in all U.S. prisons.
The FCC proposal only addresses interstate long distance calls. However, if the FCC does set lower interstate rates, this will pressure states from coast-to-coast to also adjust downward their intra-state long distance, inmate calling rates.
It is time to end telephone price gouging in U.S. prisons. If phone companies in Florida, Michigan, New York and Missouri can provide inmates with reasonable rates, so can Louisiana. Doing so will help strengthen prisoners’ family ties, and make our communities safer.
Ronald Fraser writes on public policy issues for the DKT Liberty Project, a Washington-based civil liberties organization. Write him at: fraserr@erols.com.
http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20090320/ARTICLES/903209963/-1/OPINION?Title=Louisiana-s-prison-telephone-rip-off
Posted by lois at March 21, 2009 10:11 AM