The Tyranny Of Prison Phone Charges: 'Inmates Charged Five Times Usual Rate

Sobering piece in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, headlined, ‘Talk is anything but cheap for phone calls from Pennsylvania’s prison. Phone calls from the outside do more than keep prisoners entertained, researchers say. They’ve actually been shown to keep them from re-offending, maintaining family connections that prove vital when inmates leave prison. So Ms. Ankrom doesn’t understand why her friend pays $5 for every 15-minute call, five times what it costs her to call anywhere in the country on a pre-paid cell phone. Neither does the Federal Communications Commission, which is looking into the issue. “The people who are in prison are already struggling,” she said. “I can understand them being charged. But why charge so much?” While the per-minute price of the average phone plan drops every year — approaching zero, in the case of unlimited plans — prisoners are paying exorbitant rates to call their loved ones. To dial an out-of-state number, an inmate in a Pennsylvania state prison pays $9.35 for a 15-minute call. At the Allegheny County Jail, they pay $10.65. The small group of telecom companies that sells phone service to prisons says costs are driven up by the expensive security capabilities demanded by their clients. But advocates — and perhaps the FCC, which held a workshop earlier this month to discuss the issue — instead blame state and local governments, which usually take a sizable cut of prison phone profits. “When 50 cents on every dollar goes back to the county, that doubles the cost of the call,” said Peter Wagner, executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative in Northampton, Mass. “The people who end up paying the bill are the people who are locked up.” In 2012, Pennsylvania took in $6.9 million as its cut of prisoner phone call charges. Slightly less than half went to buy amenities for inmates; the rest went to the state’s general fund. The state’s justification for the insanely high charges is that its deal with Mobile, Ala.-based Global Tel*Link ”allows jailers to monitor and record prisoner conversations.” But that seems extremely dubious, or at least indicative that there’s almost no competition when it comes to providing necessary private services such as phone utilities to prisons. Numerous sources at the Office of Special Investigations and Intelligence or OSII — the internal affairs department of Pennsylvania’s prison system — have told me that phone monitoring amounts to officers at a switchboards listening in to and recording calls that might involve conspiracy. How does listening in to a conversation amount to a 400+ percent increase in charges? It’s anyone’s guess. (Though maybe it has something to do with a 50 percent commission rate). As the article notes — and the Prison Policy Initiative has repeatedly suggested — the FCC is looking into the issue. But perhaps ambitious business people should be looking into it, too. Just think: even if some company gouged prisoners (who make as little as $0.19 per hour) at a rate of 2-to-1, they’d still be able to halve the amount Global Tel*Link charges these folks. Corporate America, are you listening? Perhaps you should be. ——— Follow me on Twitter @ssttrroouudd, where I post frequent links to fascinating stories such as this one. If you want to chat directly, I’m at stroudjournalism [at] gmail.com