This blog focus’ on what the North Country Gazette, a New York Newspaper termed, “Correctional Billing Services-Phone Extortion.” For a local upstate Newspaper these folks are extraordinarily well informed and right on target. The prices inmates and their loved ones pay for telephone services are indeed “extortion.” Most correctional systems have contract telephone service carriers. Often these carriers are the “bastard children” of much larger carriers. They disguise their names so their images are not “sullied” by being identified as Jail House telephone service providers. These carriers charge inmates up to $20.00 for a 15 minute long distance call while the respective corrections systems allegedly receive kick backs ranging from 20% to 60%. New York State’s kick back last year allegedly amounted to over 20 million dollars. That sum was for the most part taken from the earnings of low income families who can ill afford it. It is not much different in the federal system. The prices are high (23 cents a minute, and more for collect calls), and there are few if any alternatives available to an inmate who wants to stay in touch with family and loved ones. To the extent that families cannot afford to pay these incredibly high bills, and that they want to stay in touch with loved ones, the inmate phone system as it exists today is conducive to becoming a breeding ground for economic crimes. Ask yourself how the families can economically cope with monthly phone bills of $1,000 and more.
The phone service providers are devoid of even a scintilla of mercy. They set arbitrarily low credit limits based upon criteria known only to them, thus phone service between the inmate and his loved ones is terminated. The real reason behind this happening is not so much a concern on the part of the carriers that the inmate’s family won’t pay, but rather a ploy to collect their monies up front in a prepaid account, thus enabling even greater profits on the backs of a segment of the population who can least afford it.
The North Country Gazette article speaks to an inmate’s family and friends being charged 17.34 for a 15 minute call and then blocking further calls after the callers reached a threshold of $130.00. Ask yourself whether the fact that one made a mistake and is in prison justifies carriers like Evercom, Global Tel Link, and others, as well as local, state and federal governments the right to financially rape the inmate and his or her family ? You can bet in small town USA, somewhere, or perhaps even big city USA, there’s a local Sherriff or two, who put new white wall tires on his wife’s car courtesy of the inmate telephone system.
There are a few viable alternatives to the inmate system, and those that exist are not easy to ferret out. The various government entities do not want inmates using them for obvious reasons, and either block their numbers or keep literature describing alternatives out of the system by terming them contraband. As a matter of full disclosure, readers should be aware that part of our revenue is generated by providing alternate telephone service to inmates. Our company has sent out thousands of mailing piece to prisons. Often they are returned without comment. Sometimes the people operating mail rooms don’t even bother opening mail pieces. They think they know what’s in them or don’t care and just send them back. It’s frustrating for us and for the people who requested the information we attempted to provide. The government’s justification for sabotaging free trade is coming up with some cockamamie nonsense about institutional safety and security. This is the reason they provide for sending back our advertising material, or blocking the phone numbers we and other alternate providers can supply. The costs to us rise into the thousands of dollars. The government could care less. Then they cry when small business goes belly up because we can’t sustain these losses on an ongoing basis and still survive, yet they continue to thwart our efforts to earn a fair and reasonable living. The old boys and girls clubs are alive and well while minority and woman owned businesses like ours are pounded into the ground by the bureaucrats.
How is this issue going to be resolved? Your guess is as good as ours.
The following is are the regulatory agencies to contact with you problems and concerns about this issue.
- Federal Communications Commission
- Local Public Service Commission
- Federal Trade Commission