New Jersey Board of Public Utilities Retains High Phone Rates for County Jails

On February 11, 2015, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (The Board), in a public session, denied a request for rulemaking on the petition proffered by various prisoners’ advocacy institutions and individuals. The request called for a cap, similar to New York’s rate of no more than $0.05 per minute, on intrastate collect telephone calls for New Jersey prisoners in county jails and state prisons. The Board noted that the referenced New York $0.05 rate cap was arrived at through a competitive process, not rulemaking, which resulted in a contractual agreement between the telecommunications providers and the New York Department of Corrections.

New Jersey prisoners now pay $0.17 per minute for out-of-state calls from state prisons, based on the FCC imposed cap, but can pay up to $0.56 per minute for local calls made from county jails where there is no regulation. Under current contracts, counties will receive a commission usually in excess of 50% of the cost of the call. The petition noted, “[t]hese commissions create perverse incentives by encouraging the governments contracting with phone companies to choose high rates.” That specific issue was not ...

Another Kind of Isolation

The Bureau of Prisons tightens the rules at its secretive “Communication Management Units.”

By Christie Thompson

In 2006 and 2008, the Bureau of Prisons quietly created new restrictive units for terrorists or other inmates they feared might coordinate crimes from behind bars. The Communication Management Units (CMUs) were designed to more tightly monitor and restrict inmates’ communication with the outside world. The units, at Terre Haute, Indiana and Marion, Illinois, operated largely in secret, without any formal policies or procedures in place — until last week.

Federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., one of two federal facilities with Communication Management Units. Tannen Maury/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

On January 22, the Bureau of Prisons finalized rules that had been nearly five years in the making regarding who can be sent to the CMUs and how the facilities should operate. But prisoner advocates claim the new rules impose even stricter limits on contact without providing a legitimate way for inmates to appeal being placed under such restrictions.

“What this rule does is codify the harsh communication restrictions in place,” said Alexis Agathocleous, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and lead counsel in a federal ...

Delaware: Drop in Prison Phone Rates Called a “Drop in the Bucket”

by Derek Gilna

Delaware’s prison phone rates will be reduced as a result of a new contract entered into between the state Department of Correction (DOC) and Global Tel*Link (GTL) that will run from July 21, 2015 through June 30, 2018. Rates for local calls will drop from $1.22 to $.85 per call, while intrastate (in-state) rates will be reduced from $3.20 to $2.29 for a 15-minute call and rates for interstate (long distance) calls will drop from $3.75 to $2.70 for a 15-minute collect call or $2.25 for debit and prepaid calls.

Although prisoners’ rights groups like Dover-based Citizens for Criminal Justice were happy the phone rates were reduced, one advocate called the lower rates a “drop in the bucket” – just one of many inflated charges that prisoners and their families must bear.

“It’s good to see a move in the right direction,” said the organization’s director, Kenneth Abraham, a former Deputy Attorney General who served time in prison on a drug charge. “But it still seems too high and could be lower.”

The DOC’s rates for interstate calls were originally $10.70 for a 15-minute call, ...

Prisoners Pay Millions to Call Loved Ones Every Year. Now this Company Wants Even More

by Ben Walsh, Huffington Post

A captive market, no competition and government contracts that make monopoly-enabled price gouging the industry standard – it’s never been in doubt that the prison phone business is a very profitable model.

A presentation that the privately-held prison telecom company Securus made to investors that The Huffington Post obtained shows just how much money there is to be made as the state-sanctioned middleman between prisoners and the outside world: $404.6 million last year alone.

Securus, which provides phone services to 2,600 prisons and jails in 47 states, made $114.6 million in profit on that revenue in 2014. Securus’ gross profit margin – a measure of the difference between the cost to provide its services, and what it charges for them – was a whopping 51 percent. And Securus, with a 20 percent market share, isn’t even the biggest prison phone company. That would be Global Tel*Link, or GTL, which has a 50 percent market share, the New York Times reported. GTL drew national attention for its prominent role in the 2014 viral podcast Serial.

While Securus is already making massive ...

Inside the Shadowy Business of Prison Phone Calls

An IBTimes investigation into the secretive world of selling phone calls to prisoners and their families.

by Eric Markowitz

Joanne Jones, an occupational therapist from Warwick, Rhode Island, has made an unlikely foe in the past year: Securus Technologies, a billion-dollar prison technology company based in Dallas.

Sitting at her kitchen table one recent afternoon in front of a stack of Securus bills, Jones explained that her 29-year-old son, Nate Jones, had been arrested on an aggravated robbery charge in January 2014. Her son’s life may have taken a negative turn, but Jones tries to keep in touch with him as often as possible.

They speak roughly once a week in a 15-minute phone call, and speak for another 25 minutes on a video chat. Jones says she’d travel to Texas to visit her son in person, but Hays County Jail, where he is locked up, banned visitations in November 2013. That happened shortly after the county jail entered into a contract with Securus.

Since then, all family communication with prisoners at Hays County goes through Securus, which charges Jones about $10 for a phone call and about $8 for a video visit.

In the year and a half that her son has been locked up, Jones says ...

New Jersey County Seeks New Jail Phone Contract, Increases Commission Rate

by Derek Gilna

Officials in Bergen County, New Jersey are seeking bids on a new jail phone contract that will include an increase in the “commission” kickback the county receives from calls made by prisoners, which will go from 60% to 65%. Under the new contract, phone calls from the Bergen County jail will reportedly cost $.21 per minute for domestic calls and $.50 per minute for international calls. There will also be a $5.95 deposit fee for prepaid phone accounts.

At the same time, the New Jersey Department of Corrections (DOC), which contracts with Global Tel*Link for phone services, has completely eliminated its prison phone commission. As previously reported in Prison Legal News, the DOC abolished commission payments effective August 2015, which will result in significantly lower rates of under $.05 per minute. [See: PLN, May 2015, p.40; Oct. 2014, p.28].

Although New Jersey counties can opt into the DOC’s phone contract, some, including Bergen County, have declined to do so – apparently to preserve their lucrative commission payments at the expense of higher phone rates for prisoners and their family members and friends.

The Federal ...

Feds and Tennessee Officials Investigate Prisoners Using Facebook

by David Reutter

The Bureau of Prisons is investigating two prisoners who were discovered using Facebook to “broadcast live” from a federal facility in Atlanta, where they are serving time on drug and weapons charges. The probe was initiated following a November 19, 2014 investigative news report by WSMV Channel 4 in Nashville.

“Hey, what’s up everybody! It’s your boy Stackhouse Dadon, reporting live from the federal penitentiary,” said one prisoner in a video posted on Facebook.

“You all stay tuned, man. We’ll keep you updated on what’s going on in this prison,” the other prisoner stated.

The WSMV news report identified the pair as Cameron Braswell and Rex Whitlock, both from Tennessee. The videos and status updates posted on Facebook also showed off the pair’s tattoos and shoes.

“Federal inmates are not authorized to use any equipment that would allow for creating videos of themselves inside our prisons,” a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson said in a statement. “We immediately conduct investigations into these matters.” The statement added that Braswell and Whitlock could face administrative sanctions and possible federal prosecution stemming from their online profiles. Authorities have also contacted Facebook.

Braswell and ...

New Jersey, Ohio DOCs Significantly Reduce Phone Rates

According to an April 9, 2015 press release issued by New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees, LatinoJustice PRLDEF and the New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, the New Jersey Department of Corrections (DOC) has resolved a contract dispute involving its phone service provider. As a result, phone rates in New Jersey prisons are expected to drop to under $.05 per minute starting by August 2015.

Further, while the DOC had stopped accepting commission kickback payments from prison phone companies in 2014, county jails that signed onto the DOC’s phone contract continued to receive commissions of up to 56%. As a result, some jails charged $8.50 for a 15-minute in-state call. Under the DOC’s new phone contract, counties that join the contract can no longer receive kickbacks and must charge the lower rates.

Following an order by the Federal Communications Commission that capped interstate prison phone rates in February 2014, the New Jersey DOC reduced its rates – first to $.19 per minute, then to $.17, $.15 and finally to $.13 per minute in January 2015.

Under the new contract with Global Tel*Link (GTL), the phone rates will reportedly drop ...

California Prisoner’s Conviction for Smuggling Tobacco Overturned

by Lonnie Burton

A California state prisoner convicted of a felony offense for smuggling tobacco into prison has had his conviction reversed by a California appellate court, although a related conviction for smuggling cell phones was affirmed.

In September 2011, Sherman Redd, incarcerated at Avenal State Prison, was the subject of an anonymous tip that claimed he had asked staff member Alcadio Cornil to smuggle in cell phones and tobacco. When Cornil arrived for work the next day he was met by two prison investigators. Asked to empty his pockets, he immediately responded, “I give up. I surrender.”

Cornil then produced bundles that contained four cell phones, two “tennis -ball sized” packages of tobacco and several cell phone chargers, two earbuds, four cables for the cell phones, an HDMI cable and a micro SD adaptor.

When questioned, Cornil admitted that he had been paid $1,200 to deliver the items to Redd, who worked for Cornil in the prison’s kitchen. Both Cornil and Redd were charged with felony offenses. Cornil pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to communicate with a prisoner without permission and one count of bribery, and received a two-year sentence. ...

Screening Out Family Time: The For-Profit Video Visitation Industry in Prisons and Jails

by Bernadette Rabuy and Peter Wagner

Every Thursday, Lisa* logs on to her computer and spends $10 to chat for half an hour via video with her sister who is incarcerated in another state. Before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) capped the cost of interstate calls from prisons, these video chats were even cheaper than the telephone. Lisa’s experience is representative of the promise of video visitation.

Meanwhile, Mary* flies across the country to visit her brother who is being held in a Texas jail. She drives her rental car to the jail but rather than visit her brother in-person or through-the-glass, she is only allowed to speak with him for 20 minutes through a computer screen.

How do video visits work? While video visitation systems vary, a visitor typically makes an appointment and pays any visit charges in advance. The person who is incarcerated is told to be at a certain video terminal at a certain time. The visitor then either drives to the facility to sit at a terminal or uses their personal computer to access the video visitation system over the Internet. Once both ...