TIL Private companies that control prison phone calls charge over a $1/minute, apply large connection/usage fees...and work to ban inmate visitation.

alfonsomangione · 8時間前

I volunteered in a prison ministry for a decent chunk of time, and I've kept in touch with a few of the guys...I can confirm that these guys get a raw deal when it comes to this sort of thing. Companies claim it's due to extra charges because service visits are more difficult, time-consuming, dangerous, etc. And plenty of people have the attitude, "Hey, they're in prison, those are the breaks," which certainly helps the companies get away with this stuff. Still, IMHO, the fact that we throw up so many financial barriers to healthy family relationships is yet another way society actually punishes itself the harder it tries to punish the criminal. Most of these guys are going to get out eventually, and an ex-con with no healthy support structure is a lot more likely to reoffend and end up stuck in that system than one who's got the family support necessary to reintegrate into society.

Thumpinon · 6時間前

Came here late so this may get buried, but I just got released in August. I did 15 months in county jail, 7 months in prison (Washington state). I didn't read the article but.. From county jail, My family would buy phone time. When I call, it was 2.49 to connect, and .59 per minute. The calls would frequently disconnect with an automated "no three party calls allowed". Literally every 2 or 3 calls. Never used three way. Video visitation was done through Skype. Except my family had to pay $19.99 plus 4.99 connect for a 15 minute video call that was extremely choppy and often disconnected losing your money. Family called the company and after 45 minute, 3 people and 2 managers begging for a refund, gave up trying.

Sig1911 · 7時間前

[deleted]

ManhattanMadMan · 7時間前

Did fed time. Phone bill was $69 monthly for I think 200 or 300 total minutes.

Meanwhile I made $5 per month working in the kitchen.

btr154 · 9時間前

Almost all private companies in prisons use unsavory business practices.

snoogans122 · 6時間前

The connection fees is what ruined me. Someone called me from jail once to come help them out. First it was an automated machine connecting us, but it said I had to prepay onto my phone number's account first with their system. Can't do it by the minute, gotta buy $25 worth at minimum, and it's $4 per call. That it doesn't line up perfectly is an accident, i'm sure.

But I couldn't do it right then over the phone anyway, I had to go online and register it all. Which meant going through the whole process, then waiting for the person to get another turn on the phone to call me again after I had pre-paid.

Damn it was such an ordeal and a fucking ripoff. They know you have no choice, so you're gonna pay whatever they charge...

Ayylmao123xd · 8時間前

Private companies should have no hand in the prison system. It's almost always in their interest to prevent rehabilitation.

BabyMcHaggis · 9時間前

I'm always amazed by how many different ways there are for companies to be evil. =/

meezeestreezees · 5時間前

This makes me sick: I have a loved one in jail in NY. He keeps in touch via phone and letters. I need to prepay for his calls and the fee is $7.95 every time. So basically if I put $50 on the account for calls, $7.95 of that goes to a fee for using the service - every time. WTF? $7.95?!!??! Are you serious?!!! How is that not completely fucked up?

So if some old lady who's trying to hold her son down in jail or someone with not a lot of money wants to keep in touch with their loved one -- and just has a few dollars to put on the phone at a time --- well, they have to $7.95 on some bullshit fee every goddamn time they reload???? THAT'S DISGUSTING.

The prison system and criminal justice system in the US is fucked, fucked, fucked. And if people not that familiar with prisons heard the real ways the prisons fuck over not just the inmates but the families of the inmates, most people would be horrified and disgusted. And I'm not talking about the inmates who raped and murdered people and did horrible things - I'm talking about everyone - including the ones who aren't even supposed to be in there or who's charges are not that serious. They and their families don't need to be taken advantage to the degree that it's happening at. And that's all that goes on. It's fucked, fucked, fucked.

BlackManMoan · 7時間前

Global Tel Link. They are fucking assholes. The rate seemed to change by the day plus they charge a $5 transaction fee just to put money in the account. From what I remember, $20 gets you around 15-20 minutes of talk time. I called my sister one time, and granted it was long distance, $20 got us 5 minutes of talk time. When I tried to call her again, the company actually had the nerve to charge her a remaining balance from the previous call on top of the money she was putting in the account plus the $5 transaction fee.

gelinrefira · 6時間前

In September 2014, Securus, along with Global Tel*Link and Telmate, the two other major prison phone providers, presented a nine-page proposal to the FCC on what they believed a fair regulation would look like.

Fuck no. You people have proven to be unscrupulous snakes, you don't get to set rules anymore.

straydog1980 · 9時間前

Don't they also have to be guaranteed a minimum prison population

Beowulf_50 · 8時間前

LPT time for prison calls. To get around paying this much what you can do is buy a cheap disposable phone like strait talk or virgin, set up the phone using the zip code of the prison, and then forward that phone to your personal phone. Now when the prisoner calls that disposable phone it will register as a local call and usually only charge them a lower flat rate with no cost per minute. I can only confirm that this works in Minnesota.

Edit: It was Reliance that this worked for about 3 years ago

mattinthecrown · 9時間前

Rent-seeking results in such cruelness.

OHotDawnThisIsMyJawn · 6時間前

This guy I used to share an office with had a brilliant business around this. In most prisons local calls are MUCH cheaper than long distance calls. The problem is that prisons are frequently in remote areas, so pretty much every one has to call long distance to talk to their families.

So what he did was set up local VOIP servers that the prisoners could call, then he would route their calls to the long distance numbers. He'd charge them a price that was much cheaper than the prison long distance price and make a boatload of money.

Barfuzio · 9時間前

Why is it that every company that makes my fucking skin crawl is based out of Texas?

rampantdissonance · 8時間前

Jesus, talk about a captive market.

Goddamn, that isn't right

twxtwx · 7時間前

from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/us/steep-costs-of-inmate-phone-calls-are-under-scrutiny.html

In 2013, a total of $460 million in concession fees was paid to jails and prisons, and to state, county and local governments, according to the F.C.C.

LeonBlacksruckus · 5時間前

The problem is that felons are unable to vote when they leave prison (which is widely recognized as a human right NOT a privilege so it's kind of weird that we are saying you're rehabilitated but not a person). This means that politicians don't need to treat them well because they know they will never have any sway in an election, and they can do whatever they want because at the end of the politician who runs a campaign on prisoners rights is going to lose every election or reelection.

usafmedic09 · 6時間前

This is some dark fucking shit. What kills me is that they see revenue, but these are humans.

curias00 · 6時間前

Today you learned lobbying.

Portmanteaulist · 7時間前

I worked for one of these companies doing tech support for the guys who serviced the equipment in the prisons. I never saw the billing end of things, but always heard that the pricing was insane. Also the phone cards were used by inmates as currency. I once saw the same card number being used by several different inmates and told one of the CO's. He told me, "I don't care what they do as long as they aren't killing each other."

Also this is where I learned that when the phones are down for a long time the inmates get very irate and start trying to flood the place by flushing their clothes down the toilet.

And, yes I am in Texas.

humansaregods · 5時間前

I worked in the health care appeals department at a prison in California for about 2 years. We had an inmate at my facility who was there for headaches. That was it. Just headaches. He was more than likely transferred there because the prison he was at just didn't feel like dealing with him anymore. Not that he was a troublesome inmate, but a lot of prison staff are assholes. He was transferred from his old facility which was much closer to home (by about 6 hours). Four of his family members were driving there way up to visit him when they got in a car accident all four of them died. I believe they were his parents and siblings. Anyway, he submitted an appeal stating he didn't need to be at our institution because he was only there for headaches. They weren't serious at all and he was receiving the same treatment there as he was at his old institution. He wanted to go back to his old one to be closer to what little family he had left to try and avoid the same tragedy. Of course we completely denied him and I had to be the one to tell him (I had no say in the matter as I'm just a lowly secretary). Needless to say, he was extremely upset. It was really heartbreaking to see.

Working in the prison industry is such a bummer because you get to watch every day how inmates get totally fucked over by our system and how no one really gives a damn about it. When you try and say something about it everyone calls you a "bleeding heart" and tells you that you should probably get out of the prison industry. It's not a fun place to be.

Barfuzio · 9時間前

This is a microcosm of potential corporate monopoly culture...

"You're not happy? Well we're the only game in town and you seem unable or unwilling to leave...So Fuck You."

dsobz · 9時間前

$ $ $ $ $ $ $

cda555 · 6時間前

It isn't the inmates that this hurts the most, it's the loved ones who have to pay for it. My brother is a loser and every fucking time he goes to jail my mom has to pay hundreds of dollars so that he kids can talk to him.

awkmonkey · 5時間前

This is incredibly fucked up and the worst part is I'm not even surprised. Businesses profiting off of the prison system and using those profits to bribe (I'm sorry, donate to the political campaigns of) politicians to in turn hire them back is so common in the US and is hurting the victims of the criminal justice system so much. We have private prisons and those have been known to do horrible things. Honestly, the fucked up justice system is one of the main reasons we need campaign finance reform. Nobody should profit off of people going to jail, especially when they use those profits to make more people go to jail and worsen the conditions of prison.

throwawayinmatephone · 37分前

I work on inmate phone systems and can shed some light on some of this. The major reason the costs are so high is due to the sharing with the jail. Most times, the jail demands anywhere from 50 to 80% of the revenue. So, if a 15 minute call cost $8, the jail will usually get at least $4 to $6.40 of it.

In addition, these aren't like regular calls. All parts of it have to be recorded and archived for years. We also have to program in general restrictions (i.e. disable the ability to call their victims, judges, etc...), which can be different - per inmate.

Credit card fees are higher due to merchant providers charging a premium for the increased fraud potential, and there is increased fraud attempts.

Integrations with the various jails, each of which could use a different inmate management system have to designed in. Our system has to monitor inmate moves, check on various permissions (i.e. lost phone privileges, etc...)

The equipment that goes into jails is not regular equipment, it has to be hardened to support physical abuse. We also have to install hardened deposit kiosks up front.

Smaller scale. Unlike something like AT&T, which could have over 100 million users, the inmate population is significantly less, which means all the costs are spread out over a smaller group of people.

I'm not saying all the fees are reasonable. The big boys (Securus, Gobal Tel, etc...) charge a fortune. Having said that, most people think all that money just goes in their pockets, and they don't realize the amount the jail takes - or the storing of recorded messages for all conversations, for years.

Anyway, feel free to ask any questions, I'd be happy to answer.

atari26k · 7時間前

I can attest to this. Friend of mine was recently put in jail for a couple of weeks, and needed me to throw some money on his "card" (I think it was just his number actually) so not only could he make calls, but buy things like shampoo, deoderant, ect...

That's complete BS! I can understand wanting to sell some type of things, but toiletries? Legalized extortion is what I would call it.

edit: I'll throw in a plug for Sanders... this is why I am voting for him. This type of corporate abuse has to stop!

mrshatnertoyou · 8時間前

Prisons are run by low paying officials and bureaucrats. The results are quite predictable on all levels. The most accurate part of OITNB are the prison staff and management.

ManaSyn · 8時間前

A private prison is something evil taken out of a bad science fiction movie... I am appalled they exist in real life.

look_its_a_squirrel · 6時間前

Just par for the course with our fucked up judicial system. It's crooked all the way from the police up to the US Atty Gen.

PrisonCallsThrowAway · 7時間前

They are not all like this though. The company I use to talk to my brother charges a flat $1.50 (still not great), but we can talk for as long as we want.

PickitPackitSmackit · 4時間前

The US prison system is a profiteer's wet dream. To sane people, it's a fucking disgrace.

Prisons for profit are a crime against humanity.

natman2939 · 4時間前

Jails and prisons have so many problems it's not even funny

And the idea that " it's supposed to be a punishment " doesn't make it okay

Such as the fact that theyre getting fed "food" that isn't actually supposed to be eaten by humans.

SharpedoWeek · 1時間前

Probably get buried. My brother is in prison... 5 cents a minute. I give him 20 dollars he calls almost every other day for 15 minutes. Also I send him e-mails and video messages and picturea for dirt cheap to his tablet. Cheaper than snail mail. Fyi he is in high security prison since 1997. Non violent crime... He broke out and they don't like that. Big sentence after that.

todayilearned

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