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By Pat Nolan|Published Date: December 03, 2009
Of all the factors that help inmates after their release, an intact family is the most important in helping them stay on the right path. Research shows that when returning inmates have a supportive family, they are more likely to find a job, less likely to use drugs and less likely to be involved in criminal activities. The support and accountability that a stable family provides have a clear, positive impact.
For these reasons, you’d think that prisons would do all they can to strengthen relationships between inmates and their families. It seems reasonable that authorities would make strong family ties a top priority. Unfortunately, many don’t. And that is bad for all of us: the prisoner, the family and the community.
Prisoners are often incarcerated hundreds of miles from their home, which makes visits with family members difficult, if not impossible. That’s why prisoners rely on telephone calls to keep in touch with loved ones.
Some prisons, however, are adding exorbitant charges to prison phone calls, claiming that the more expensive services are necessary to ensure that criminal activities—such as making threats or doing drug deals—are not perpetrated. The prison authorities fail to mention, however, that the prisons, and sometimes even the states, are profiting from these calls. Recent estimates show that prison phone services nationwide generate as much as $1 billion a year.
Prisoners can’t receive calls, they can only make collect calls. Some states charge as much as $3.95 to place the call, plus an additional 89 cents per minute. For instance, New York once used inmate phones as a profit center. MCI, which provided the phone service, paid the prison system 57.5 percent of the fees it charged for prisoners’ collect calls. The state then allowed MCI to charge outrageously high rates: 16 cents or more a minute, plus a $3 surcharge for every call.
But don’t think it was the inmates paying for this outrage. It was their families who had to pick up the tab—as much as $300 to $400 a month.
In 2007, the New York Legislature made it illegal for the Department of Correctional Services to accept revenue in excess of its reasonable costs for operating an inmate phone system. New York no longer receives a percentage and prison phone rates have dropped to 15 cents per minute.
Our communities have a huge stake in the successful reentry of inmates after they serve their sentences. Over 700,000 inmates will be released from prison this year. These returning inmates will be our neighbors. Will they have the stability and support of an intact family? Or will they be cast adrift with no social network other than their old friends that got them in trouble in the first place? A supportive family often makes the difference between inmates becoming healthy, contributing members of society or returning to criminal behavior.
You can help by contacting your legislators and asking them to review your state’s policies regarding prison phone rates. If this policy undercuts inmate families, ask them to work with you to change it.
I urge you also to write to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about their Inmate Telephone Service. Prison Fellowship and our allies in this effort will be meeting soon with FCC staff on a proposal that was filed in 2007 requesting that the FCC establish rate caps for interstate long-distance inmate payphone services. A sample letter is attached to this eReport for your convenience.
I hope you will use the resources on our website and those listed below to make these contacts and to stay informed about this very important issue.
Please let us know of your progress. The result will be stronger families and safer communities.
In His service,
Pat Nolan
Vice President, Prison Fellowship
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