by Matt Clarke

On June 1, 2007, the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts released an audit report critical of the funding practices of the state's Department of Corrections (DOC).

The DOC operates 19 prisons, 10 work release centers, three community work centers and a pre-release center, and contracts with two out-of-state facilities to accommodate its more than 25,600 in-custody state prisoners. The department is funded at $349 million a year, which works out to $37 per prisoner per day -- about half the national average. Due to this underfunding, guards are poorly paid, aging prisons are poorly maintained and prisoner healthcare is abysmal, leading to lawsuits.

Instead of seeking a more appropriate level of funding, the DOC has been trying to close the budget gap -- estimated to reach $30 million in 2008 -- by accepting contractual kickbacks for expensive prison phone calls and by hitting prisoners with various fees that have totaled $13 million since January 2001.

A 15-minute out-of-state phone call originating from an Alabama prison costs a prisoner's family $14.15, or almost a dollar a minute. This money is often collected from financially-strapped families whose primary breadwinner is unable to contribute to their income due ...

AT&T Settlement Includes Fines, Reimbursement for Overcharging Recipients of Phone Calls From Washington Prisoners

by Michael Rigby

Telephone service provider AT&T has agreed to reimburse the families and friends of Washington prisoners who were overcharged on collect phone calls made from two state prisons during a four month period in 2005.

Also pursuant to the December 13, 2007 settlement agreement, AT&T will pay $302,705 in fines levied by the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) for the unauthorized overages.

In August 2005, Seattle resident Richard Laxton filed a complaint with the UTC noting a discrepancy in the charges applied to two collect phone calls made from the Airway Heights prison. AT&T charged Laxton an already outrageous $15.75 for a 20-minute phone call from the prison. But Zero Plus Dialing, a billing agent for AT&T, charged an even more egregious $22.22 for the same phone call.

According to the UTC investigation, Zero Plus Dialing was charging a connection fee of $3.95, plus 89 cents per minute, plus a 47-cent prison surcharge for calls made from Airway Heights and the Washington State Penitentiary. The UTC found that Zero Plus Dialing's billing scheme exceeded the allowed prices of $3.95 for a connection fee ...

Over 1,000 cellphones and Blackberrys were confiscated in California's 33 prisons in the past year. While such contraband was at a trickle seven years ago, the technology has reduced the size of these items to permit a veritable flood today -- 221 alone at the Solano State Prison in the first six months of 2007. At the going rate of $400 to $600, some employees have been caught smuggling up to 50 phones at a time.

Anthony Kane, Associate Director for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), told legislators recently, "It's a tremendous problem." The dangers are plain. Gang members can use the phones to clandestinely direct activities on the streets from behind the walls, noted Gary Hearnsberger of the Los Angeles District Attorney's Hardcore Gang Division. Imprisoned gang leaders could direct killings, run drug operations or intimidate witnesses, he stated. Although mail and normal phone calls are screened to prevent such activities, cellphones escape oversight. Of course, if technology can permit monitoring, this could prove a boon to catching and prosecuting such miscreants.

State Senator Alex Padilla wrote Corrections Secretary James Tilton requesting a full investigation, noting that such devices in the hands of maximum security prisoners ...

Jaime Jasso, a California state prisoner, made several phone calls to someone outside of prison named Ruben. Guards monitored those calls and discovered that their purpose was for Passo to give Ruben directions for obtaining drugs and supplying them to three different women for delivery to three prisoners. The women were caught trying to visit the prisoners to deliver the drugs. Jasso was convicted of three counts of conspiracy to transport the drugs into the prison after the trial court gave jury instructions which did not include an instruction for a single, ongoing conspiracy. Jasso appealed.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal of California, 6th Appellate District, found that the jury might have found that the three incidents were the result of one agreement between Jasso and Ruben to smuggle the drugs. On that basis, Jasso's convictions were vacated and the case remanded to the trial court. See: California v. Jasso, 142 Cal.App.4th 1213, 48 Cal.Rptr.3d 697 (Cal.App. 6 Dist., 2006).

On December 3, 2007, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals held that partial state funding of a religious-based prison program in Iowa was unconstitutional.

The Court further held that InnerChange, a division of Prison Fellowship Ministries, was not obligated to repay $1.5 million it has received in state funding since the program began in 1999.

The Eighth Circuit decision is the latest in a string of rulings in 2007 that prohibit using government money to promote religion, said George Washington University law professor Robert Tuttle, who is an expert on faith-based initiatives.

?The main thing it does is reaffirm the obligation of government not to fund programs that intermingle secular and religious content,? said Tuttle. ?The federal government has come to terms with that over the last year. Even when it has won cases, there hasn?t been a single decision that would allow government to intertwine secular and religious content.?

In February 2003 Iowa prisoners and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Iowa challenging the state?s partial funding of the program. In 2005 the district court found the state funded program to ...

California detainee David Windham appealed a decision holding that recordings of jail-placed phone conversations were lawful and could be used for conviction purposes.

Windham asked his girlfriend for money while shopping. She refused and he followed her to her car and forced his way in. He physically abused her and forced her to have sex with him, then threatened to kill her if she told the police. An officer noticed damage and swelling to her face and arrested Windham.

Awaiting trial and in custody, he called his girlfriend repeatedly and mentioned events leading up to his arrest. When informed that the recordings would be used in his prosecution, he filed a motion to suppress. The court denied the suppression motion and ruled that there was implied consent to record the phone calls based on three separate warnings Windham received prior to placing the call. These warnings included the written jail rules, posted signs, and a recording heard by both parties when the calls were placed.

On appeal, the California Court of Appeals held that the recordings were legal under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. § 2510, and the California Invasion ...

Lord Glennie of the Court of Session in Edinburgh, Scotland ruled that the blanket policy of imprinting all prisoner originated phone calls with the warning, "This call originates from a Scottish prison" violated the European Convention on Human Rights because it "inhibited (the prisoner's) social rehabilitation" and was "embarrassing." But the court opined that an individualized use of such warnings might be justified upon a prior showing of good cause.

Stewart Potter, imprisoned at Glenochil in Clackmannanshire on a 21-year term for assault and robbery, petitioned the Court of Session, Outer House for judicial review of the lawfulness of the policy of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) and/or Governor (warden) of the prison that such a pre-recorded message should be arbitrarily attached to all outgoing prisoner-originated phone calls. He complained that when calling his children at their school, he (and they) were embarrassed to have it publicized that their father was in prison.

SPS had made the following blanket policy in regards to prisoner phone calls. (1) Prisoners may only call one of 20 numbers pre-approved by the Governor; (2) all calls are logged; (3) calls may be recorded or monitored; (4) all calls are preceded by the complained-of automated ...

Connecticut Prisoners' Families Gouged on Phone Calls

Until recently, most Connecticut Department of Correction (CDOC) prisoners were forced to make phone calls using an MCI (Verizon Business) collect calling system at rates much higher than those charged to the general public.

Under MCI's contract, 45% of the company's profits are kicked back to the state as "commission" payments, which have totaled $32.7 million since 2001. Although that equates to unethical price gouging of prisoners' families and friends, while simultaneously disadvantaging prisoners who need to maintain crucial outside support pending their release, it's the standard arrangement for most prison and jail systems.

Dianne Johnson, a working grandmother, has been trying to stay in touch with her son at a CDOC facility during his 20-year burglary term. Paying up to $17 per 15-minute call, she estimates the phone charges will add up to a multi-thousand dollar burden.

Worse yet, the Hartford Courant has reported that little or none of the MCI phone kickback money is being funneled into programs to benefit prisoners, such as re-entry or training projects. The state acknowledged that most of the revenue was spent on "state telecommunications, including computer tracking systems for law enforcement."

State Senator Andrew McDonald ...

by Matt Clarke

On May 15, 2007, legislation took effect that brought Texas into the fold of the other 49 states that have prisoner telephones in state prisons.
State Senator Letica Van de Putte filed SD 1580, authorizing the phones, which took effect Nay 15, 2007. State Representatives Terri Hodge (D-Dallas) and Pat Haggerty (R-El Paso) filed companion bills in the House. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and 142-1 in the House.
Governor Rick Perry, a strong opponent of prison phones, refused to sign the bill, but also did not veto it. Instead, he issued a statement of his concerns regarding the bill and directed the Texas Board of Criminal Justice "to develop stringent Guidelines that assure that pedophiles, predatory sex offenders, murderers, rapists, and other violent offenders - who have forfeited all rights to such privilege by the nature of their offenses - are not granted the phone privilege." How this is implemented remains to be seen.

Why did it take so long for Texas to catch up with the rest of the country? Official paranoia and the influence of "tough on crime" victims rights groups. The official paranoia was somewhat assuaged by the advent of new ...

by John E. Dannenberg

An often overlooked segment of the nation's prison population, alien detainees, was the subject of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit between May 2006 and May 2007. While the largest problem noted was limited access to free telephones to call attorneys and consulates, numerous other deficiencies were found pervasive.

The number of illegal aliens in the United States was estimated in 2006 at 12 million. The total number per year spending some time in alien detention grew to 286,000 by 2006, with available bed space at around 27,500. As of December 31, 2006, 27,607 aliens were in detention.
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) budgeted $953 million for detention services for fiscal year 2007. National detention standards apply to the 330 adult and three family facilities used to house detainees. The instant audit reviewed 23 facilities to see how well standards were adhered to, whether ICE's internal compliance reviews were effective and what complaints surfaced in the outside world regarding detainees. Of 35 national detention standards, eight were selected for audit. These included telephone access, medical care, holding room procedures, use of force, food service, recreation, access to legal materials and grievance procedures.

The most persistent problem ...