Re: New federal rate caps on telephone calls by prison inmates [telecom]

NJ.COM reported that the Federal Communications Commission passed

> a sweeping reform on inmate calling costs Thursday, capping the > rates for the first time on local, in-state and long-distance > calls. According to the FCC, the "ballooning" rates have cost > inmates up to $14 per minute for calls at times made from inside > prisons -- a steep expense that has made contact unaffordable for > many families with incarcerated relatives. > > Some states made a profit above and beyond the expenses of handling > inmate calls. > > Prison experts say contact with families helps rehabilitation and > prevent fights and disruption within the prison.

I have a different perspective on this issue than that of many other people: as a Military Policeman in Vietnam, I saw with my own eyes the disdain most criminals have for the rules of society, and for those who obey them.

Unlike many of their victims, none of the inmates in prisons have a gun held at their head when they choose to spend money for phone calls. If they feel that the rates are unreasonable, they need only stop paying them: when enough inmates refrain from doing so, the rates will fall. It's not as if the U.S. Postal Service isn't in operation, or as if the liberal media doesn't have hundreds of other tempests to churn up in dozens of other toilet bowls.

The reporters who parade criminals in front of the public for no better reason than to sell soap, and the rulemakers who chose to pretend that prison phone rates aren't in line with the extraordinary costs of doing business in secure facilities, and the vicious opportunists who play the "blame and shame" game to advance hidden political agendas have *ALL* commited a crime: they have wasted the voters' time with trivia instead of proposing solutions to the immense, complicated, and difficult problems confronting our country.

I propose a simple answer to those who feel convicted fellons need discount phone service: let's all remind the FCC of the rule that every convicted fellon knows - "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time" - and *EVERYTHING* that goes with it.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Horne
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:Unlike many of their victims, none of the inmates in prisons have a :gun held at their head when they choose to spend money for phone :calls. If they feel that the rates are unreasonable, they need only :stop paying them:

And be unable to reasonably participate in their own defence? There are zero good economic reasons that the rates are as high as they are, the problem is that the people who pay do not have any choice in the carrier, and the prisons (and in some cases, politicians personally!) benefit from the high rates.

Reply to
David Scheidt

What passed for a "criminal" then may have been a more selective approach than what passes now. The prison population of the US is several times higher than it was in the 1970s; most are only there for drug crimes, and many are mentally ill. The prison system has replaced the mental hospitals that were closed by "deinstitutionalization". Sentences are also longer now, and many prosecutors more zealous. Especially towards certain population groups.

Prison phone calls are the best way for a prisoner to maintain contact with one's family. Those who routinely talk on the phone have a lower recidivism rate than those who are cut off. And their children are less likely to be incarcerated than those who have lost contact. So society as a whole benefits.

Society tried the "throw the book at everyone" approach starting in the

1970s, and it resulted in the USA's spending more money on prisons than on education. That's just wrong. Fortunately both parties have recognized the failure of that policy. In the meantime, prisoners' families, who are usually poor (the rich have better lawyering), are being billed ridiculous rates for the collect calls they get from their incarcerated relatives (they are always collect, so the prisoners themselves don't pay). This violates the "just and reasonable" standard for common carrier services. It's good that the FCC is stepping in.
Reply to
Fred Goldstein

I think the largest obstacle to any impartial debate on this subject is folklore, but I'm going to ask that you accept the fact that Gideon is not sounding any trumpet for this cause, and that immates rarely participate in their own defense via phone, because their lawyers want to be able to gauge their honesty when speaking about matters which will reflect on the attorney's professional standing and future employability.

As for there being "zero good economic reasons" for higher-than-usual rates on calls from prisons, you are wrong.

Here's a partial list of the good economic reasons:

  1. The intersection of the sets of

A. "Available, employable(1), and competent telephone technicians"

B. "Techs who can work safely in mixed Delta/Wye/DC power environments"

C. "Able-bodied persons who can lift and carry fifty-pound backup battery packs for long distances"

D. "Persons willing to endure having human feces thrown at them while they work"

... is vanishingly small, thus motivating the members of the intersection to command higher-than-normal salaries and benefits.

  1. Telephone instruments used in secure locations have to be specially made, due to the abuse inmates sometimes visit on the phones over which they receive information-that-they-did-not-want-to-hear. They cost a LOT more than ordinary phones.

  1. Telephone instruments used in secure locations must be maintained while a Correctional Officer is in attendance, both so as to lessen the chances of replacement sets or parts being used as concealment for contraband, and to prevent unarmed technicians whom are not trained in self-defense from being assaulted with their own tools.

  2. Technicians who work in secure environments must use company vehicles, because they cannot risk having their identities or home addresses known to convicted felons. If a technician arrives at a prison with his/her own vehicle, someone might take note of the license plate, and someone's friend might show up at the techs home and promise not to maim, rape, or kill the technician's family, provided that the tech becomes a mule for a drug dealer.

Long story short: secure environments cost a lot more. The costs must be balanced by the income.

Bill

  1. Fingerprint and criminal background checks are routine, as are random drug and alcohol tests.
Reply to
Bill Horne

In Bill Horne writes: [snip]

Just addressing this one point and putting aside all the other issues:

It seems to me that... with telephone sets costing, perhaps, five dollars apiece for basic units, it would be better to treat them as disposable throways and simply budget for a replacement each month. Or even each week.

- I'd suggest the same analysis in many other situations where the Conventional Tradition has been to make something that's super duper sturdy... (Which, natch, makes their destruction a big challenge and temptation)

Reply to
danny burstein

Maybe those would explain a 50-100% bump in the price, but they hardly explains rates that were reported to be more than 1,000 times higher than the rates on the outside. Nor would increased costs explain why the states should make a *profit* on the service -- if it costs the telco more to provide the service, the fees should go to the telco.

Reply to
Barry Margolin

I'm sorry, but that's not a viable solution. It does, however, illustrate the added costs and burdens that vendors must undergo when providing phone services in secure locations.

Discount phones can't be used in secure environments because:

  1. The cords can be easily detached, since they're usually connected with RJ-22 plugs, and they pose a choking and hanging hazard whether or not they're attached to the phone.

  1. Discount phones are both heavy enough to be used as weapons, and flimsy enough to be easily ripped out of the wall or other mount. The handsets, of course, serve well as clubs and hiding places for contraband.

  2. The internal wiring can be stripped out and used for a garrote.

  1. The microphones are not secured to prevent unauthorized removal.

  2. The hookswitch assemblies and handsets are subject to damage by cleaning solvents, and are easily sabotaged.

  1. Low-end instruments might not be compatible with hearing aids, and seldom come equipped with the hearing amplifiers required on phones in government facilities.

Moreover, even if such phones were acceptable for use, the high costs of dispatching a specially vetted, trained, and equipped technician - from as much as 400 miles away - would offset any savings.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Horne

The telephone instrument cost is not the issue. If, taking Bill's advice, it's a problem, then the phone set itself might be a $300 ruggedized model. Installing it would be done like any other maintenance, with the prisoners moved elsewhere (unable to fling dung at them, as if that were a real issue here). Let's say that it cost $2000/phone once installation were done.

A prison phone is shared and queued, so it is very busy. Let's say it's used 5 hours (300 minutes) per day. At five cents/minute, those fifteen bucks/day pay for the phone in a few months. But prison phone calls sometimes cost multiple dollars per minute. They could buy a new phone every day for what they have been charging. It's a web of kickbacks to the turnkeys that fuels the bill.

Nor does this only apply to convicts. Phone calls from jails (where people who have not been convicted, but are not able to meet bail, are kept) are also overpriced. These prisoners do need to talk to their lawyers, and sometimes are involved in complicated cases where others' lawyers need to talk with them.

Reply to
Fred Goldstein

Regarding per-minute rates being higher, there certainly are 'kickbacks' in a number of installations. However, consider also that these are generally full-service installations. A vendor installs the telephones and systems at their rates. These include not only traditional voice calling, but accounting services, and call detail records and recording retentions for a number of years. That is turned into a per-minute value cost instead of piecemeal billing for ease. Reportedly, a number of services are looking into video calling, for when in-person visits are not possible (a separate topic itself). Those would not be regulated and are certain to come at much higher usage rates.

Adam Pawlowski

PS Please forgive a breach of posting etiquette. I know you'd replied before of a way I should reply as I'd done it wrong, but I'm unable to find that mail.

***** Moderator's Note *****

I don't remember. It's all a blank.

Let's see:

  1. Charset=us-ascii, but Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit. Hmmm.
  2. No "In-Reply-To" or "References" headers. Fixed. I forgive you.

That's all I noticed.

Bill Horne Moderator

Reply to
Adam Pawlowski

Or perhaps even each *CALL*.

I suggest going in the opposite direction. At the rates prisoners are currently paying, they can probably get off cheaper buying a really, really cheap one-use phone for each and every phone calling session (I'm presuming they are allowed to make several calls in a row in case of wrong numbers or talking to several dispersed family members or trying to get witnesses and their lawyer to get together. So maybe they can get up to half an hour to make as many calls as they want?) Do you think someone can make an edible (landline) phone expected to last for an hour of use for $2? They don't have to accept incoming calls or ring. At the end of the session, the prisoner is required to eat the phone. If he doesn't, he won't be allowed to buy any more. Edible phones with decent nutritional value also save on other parts of the food budget.

I seem to recall something about cheap prepaid cell phones being "printed" on cardboard, including the electronics and the battery, and perhaps they could use pizza instead. I think they were already under the $2 cost. You can power a clock with a potato in a science fair project, why not a phone that has to last less than the duration of the science fair?

It would make some sense if each prisoner could take responsibility for taking care of his/her own phone, however, the risk of things like beating someone over the head with it or strangling someone with the cord probably makes this impractical.

Reply to
Gordon Burditt

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