Sometime in the early morning of April 26, 2012, in his cell in a remote Pennsylvania prison, a 74-year-old jailhouse lawyer serving a life sentence hung himself. He was a quiet man who avoided taking credit for his work, so many people in and outside of prison don’t know about the debt they owe to Jon E. Yount.

I knew Jon well, although not as well as I’d have liked. We corresponded a few hundred times, with him writing more than me, and I visited him four or five times. Some might recognize Jon’s name from the Prison Policy Initiative advisory board, but very few people know that Jon was the first person to recognize how the Census Bureau’s prison miscount could distort state legislative redistricting.

In the late 1990s, Jon and filmmaker Tracy Huling, working independently, linked the Census Bureau’s practice of counting incarcerated people as residents of the location where they were imprisoned to negative political and economic effects. Tracy and Jon’s efforts started people talking about the issue, and it was this “rumor” that I initially set out to debunk. I was skeptical that the prison system was large enough for census counts of correctional populations to ...

On December 28, 2012, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took a major step in a process that could lead to “just and reasonable” interstate phone rates for calls made from prisons, jails and other detention centers.

“Today, we officially answer the call from tens of thousands of consumers who have written, emailed and, yes, phoned the Commission, pleading for relief on interstate long distance rates from correctional facilities,” said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a supporter of the Campaign for Prison Phone Justice.

Nearly ten years after the “Wright Petition” landed at the FCC – named after petitioner Martha Wright, who had accepted phone calls from her incarcerated grandson – the Commission issued a “Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” (NPRM), that was published in the Federal Register on January 22, 2013. This opens up a sixty-day period, until March 25, 2013, to submit public comments on the NPRM to make the cost of prison phone calls more affordable to consumers.

Before the FCC Commissioners decide whether and how to lower prison phone rates, they want to hear more about the experiences of prisoners and their families with the prison telephone system, and ideas for changing it.

In the past six months ...

On December 12, 2012, after a “raucous” hearing with four hours of testimony, the Louisiana Public Service Commission (LPSC) voted to lower the cost of telephone calls made from state prisons and local jails. With rates of $.30 per minute and surcharges to set up phone accounts, calls made by Louisiana prisoners were previously around 15 times the cost of freeworld phone calls. The rate cut will be a relief for families of the roughly 40,000 people held in prisons and jails in Louisiana.

The proposal to reduce the phone rates first came before the LPSC for a vote on November 15, 2012. At that hearing, Commissioners Foster L. Campbell and Jimmy Field voted in favor of the proposal while Commissioners Eric Skrmetta and Clyde Holloway voted against. Responding to pleas from sheriffs, Commissioner Lambert C. Boissiere III abstained, wanting to give the sheriffs another month to review the proposal before deciding whether he would vote in favor of cutting prison and jail phone rates. The LPSC then voted 3-2 to defer the vote until December.

Former prisoners, prisoners’ family members, attorneys and advocates took the stand at the LPSC hearings in November and December to testify in support of ...

On December 18, 2012, the Board of Commissioners for Cook County, Illinois voted to lower the outrageous cost of telephone calls made by prisoners at the Cook County Jail.
The county has a contract with Securus Technologies, which operates phone systems in 2,200 jails and prisons across 44 states. The county’s contract with Securus guaranteed a 57.5% kickback commission from gross phone revenue, which translated to around $300,000 per month.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle led the charge to lower the jail phone rates. She said she thought it was wrong to view prisoners as a revenue source. For one thing, the people who must pay the high cost of prisoners’ phone calls are often already poor; she noted that many prisoners in the Cook County Jail cannot afford to post bond.

“The county pays $143 a day to keep someone in jail. That’s a high cost for taxpayers to pay because defendants are too poor to make their bond payments,” said Preckwinkle.
Poor and working families in Cook County have been hit hard by the high phone rates, too. Monica Ingram, a nurse who provides homecare, was distraught when she realized, after spending $60 on calls in one ...

by Derek Gilna and Brandon Sample

A September 2011 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which reviewed the use of cell phones by federal prisoners, recommended various options to reduce the recent spike in such contraband devices. According to the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), “a number of reports have demonstrated that inmates are smuggling in cell phones to coordinate criminal activity, such as drug sales, assault, and murder.”

Possession of a cell phone by federal prisoners now brings possible criminal charges under the Cell Phone Contra-band Act of 2010 (Public Law No 111-225), codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1791, plus institutional discipline such as loss of privileges, loss of good time credits and transfer to a higher-security facility.

Although the GAO report included charts and graphs purporting to show that contraband cell phone possession is increasing, there is no discussion or analysis as to the rate of recovered cell phones per number of prisoners, which is a statistic of greater significance due to the steadily growing BOP population.

Second, there is no discussion in the report about the number of minutes of phone time that BOP prisoners are allotted – 300 per month and 400 in November ...

On October 23, 2012, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), which publishes Prison Legal News, submitted a joint letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) urging action on the “Wright Petition,” which asks the FCC to place caps on interstate prison phone rates to make them more affordable.

The Wright Petition has been pending before the FCC since 2003. Sixty criminal justice organizations signed on to the joint letter, including the American Friends Service Committee, Correctional Association of New York, National CURE, Southern Center for Human Rights, Justice Policy Institute, Prison Policy Initiative and The Sentencing Project.

The letter described problems with the unregulated prison phone industry and highlighted the “commission” kickback system that drives up the cost of prison telephone calls in most states. According to HRDC’s letter, some consumers pay more than $17.00 for a 15-minute interstate prison phone call; in many cases it costs more to accept a collect call from a prisoner in another state than it does to place a call to China.

On November 5, 2012 the Center for Media Justice (CMJ) submitted another joint letter to the FCC asking for action on the Wright Petition. This time 96 groups concerned with media justice ...

In June 2012, Prison Legal News began running a full-page flyer for the Campaign for Prison Phone Justice, asking people to get involved and take action. Within weeks, letters from PLN readers began flooding the Federal Communications Commission, urging the FCC to cap the high costs of interstate prison phone calls. The letters and comments described the exorbitant phone rates that prisoners and their families have to pay, and explained the consequences – personal, financial and societal – of expensive prison phone calls.

“My parents, 84 and 85 years old, barely can pay their bills with their income,” wrote prisoner Robert Taylor in his letter to the FCC. He noted that telephone calls are the only way to communicate with his aging parents, as his mother suffers from macular degeneration, a medical condition that results in loss of vision, and cannot read or write.

His parents “often go without meals to be able to cover the cost of hearing my voice,” Taylor said. “It’s a shame for these companies to be able to gouge our families so hard that they have to miss meals just to speak to their loved ones.”

According to FCC Docket #96-128 (known as the Wright ...

An Illinois prisoner has accepted $2,500 to settle a lawsuit against Ameritech, in which he accused the telecommunications company of fraudulently and intentionally disconnecting phone calls made by prisoners.

Prisoner Johnnie Flournoy filed suit in state court in 2002. He alleged fraud and negligence against Ameritech, a prison phone service provider, for intentionally disconnecting his collect calls early in order to force a second call that would require another connection fee and surcharge.

The state court dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that the Illinois Public Utilities Act grants the Illinois Commerce Commission exclusive jurisdiction over complaints concerning excessive rates or overcharges. The Third District Court of Appeal for Illinois, however, found the matter was a civil action based upon alleged fraud and negligence that resulted in multiple surcharges and connection fees, and held the circuit court had jurisdiction. [See: PLN, Dec. 2004, p.31].

The parties litigated the case for the next seven years, including another appeal and appellate ruling in favor of Flournoy. [See: PLN, Aug. 2009, p.37]. The eventual settlement provided that Ameritech, which is owned by the Illinois Bell Telephone Company, denied wrongdoing. Nonetheless the company agreed to pay $2,500 to settle the matter. Flournoy represented himself ...

Mel Motel: "Strong Families, Safe Communities" Sends Clear Message for Phone Justice

2012-11-15

The Campaign for Prison Phone Justice is a national effort challenging prison phone kickbacks and the U.S. Prison Telephone Industry. The campaign is jointly led by: Media Action Grassroots Network, Working Narratives, Prison Legal News and Participant Media as part of the social action campaign for Ava Duvernay's film Middle of Nowhere.

As the crowd chanted, "Fair rates! Now!" I felt warm despite the breeze that whipped through the courtyard outside the Federal Communications Office in Washington, DC. Around 75 people gathered from across state lines and political beliefs to rally for "Strong Families, Safe Communities." Put another way, we were all standing in person to urge the FCC to lower the cost of prison phone calls by taking action on the Wright Petition.

The rally was a mix of inspiration, encouragement, celebration and truth telling. On both ends of the rally, religious leaders led us in faithful call for an end to policies that victimize poor families. The crowd also joined the lovely-voiced singer Kenyatta Hardison in uplifting songs to open and close the gathering.

It was incredible to hear the remarks of prison phone justice ...

Over the past 22 years Prison Legal News has been represented by dozens of lawyers around the country in a variety of cases, mostly dealing with censorship and public records requests. We have met many if not most of our attorneys because they subscribed to PLN, based on their interest in criminal justice issues and the fact that they are generally litigating prison and jail cases. That was how we happened to meet Brian Barnard.

Brian was one of the very few civil rights lawyers in Utah. When jails in Utah and the Utah Department of Corrections censored PLN in the mid 1990s, Brian was the person we turned to for advice and then legal representation. He represented PLN in five separate censorship suits over the years – four against jails and one against the Utah DOC. Brian had successfully represented prisoners in various cases since the mid 1970s; he was often the attorney of last resort for citizens in Utah whose rights were violated by government officials.

I am saddened to report that Brian died in his sleep on September 4, 2012. While in many jurisdictions there are dozens if not hundreds of lawyers who are capable and willing ...