The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Yet the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Campaign to Promote Equitable Telephone Charges reports that the families of Massachusetts inmates pay Global Tel* Link, the Bay State’s prison phone monopoly, much more.

For a 15-minute call, including per-call and usage charges, the campaign calculates that inmate families in Massachusetts pay a very reasonable 15 cents per minute for intrastate long-distance collect calls, but a whopping 89 cents per minute for interstate collect calls. A similar interstate call using a debit or prepaid card would cost a lot less, but Massachusetts prisons do not permit the use of such cards.

In other states, inmates’ 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 Massachusetts rates include “commissions” (also known as kickbacks) negotiated during the contracting process and paid to prison operators as a percentage of phone revenues. Eager to win lucrative contracts, competing phone companies sweeten their bids by offering generous kickbacks as high as 65 percent.

Only seven states - Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma and Rhode Island - do not accept such commissions 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 market, with help from greedy phone companies and uncaring prison operators, actually drives rates up.

Studies 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 6 and 12 cents per minute to provide interstate debit calling.

Using these cost estimates, in Massachusetts Global Tel* Link is making a profit on collect interstate calls in the 80 percent to 86 percent range. Nationally, estimates are that prison phone companies make similar profits on these calls.

It’s not that no one has noticed the ripoff. The 2006 Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons reported that inmate phone rates are “extraordinarily high.” Even the American Bar Association has 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.

Martha Wright and other inmate family members have asked the FCC to mandate that inmates making interstate collect calls be charged no more than 25 cents per minute, and interstate debit calls no more than 20 cents per minute. Their proposal also asks that the debit card option be provided in all U.S. prisons.

It is time to end phone price gouging in prisons. If phone companies in Florida, Michigan, Missouri and New York can provide inmates with reasonable rates, so can Massachusetts. Doing so will help strengthen prisoners’ family ties and make our communities safer.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1158433