The State of Montana has contracted with Public Communications Services (PCS), Inc. to provide phone services to prisoners in the Department of Corrections, according to a January 3, 2006 press release.

PCS holds itself out as a bargain for both the DOC and prisoner families, providing modern call-monitoring equipment--calls will be recorded digitally and prison officials will have the option of blocking individual phone numbers--new phones, and rational calling rates.

Citing the high number of complaints under the previous plan, DOC contract manager Gary Willems said the new system provides a fairer and cheaper phone service for inmate families.

Prisoner families were being gouged under the old system, paying $31.54 for a 30 minute call to anywhere in the continental United States. PCS will reportedly charge $8.75 plus tax for the same call.

The rate is less than it was previously but still significantly higher than outside rates, providing a comfortable profit margin for the company and its prison clients at the expense of prisoners' families.

The release notes that PCS, which focuses on prisoner calling services exclusively, recently acquired all of Verizon's prison and jail accounts. It remains to be seen whether PCS's rates will remain rational if the ...

NY DOC's 60% Telephone Call Surcharge" Violates First and Fourteenth Amendments

by John E. Dannenberg

The U.S. District Court (S.D. N.Y.) ruled that the 60% surcharge (kickback) that the New York State Department of Corrections (NYDOC) receives from MCI, Inc. for the privilege of MCI being awarded a sole-source contract for all NYDOC prisoner collect phone calls violates the First Amendment plus the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court therefore permitted a suit brought by prisoners' families in federal court to proceed against NYDOC, but dismissed co-defendant MCI (after delaying the case two years to await MCI's emergence from bankruptcy proceedings).

Over fiscal years 1996-1999, gross NYDOC prisoner telephone call revenue collected by sole provider MCI exceeded $155 million. Of this sum, a staggering $93 million (approximately 60%) was kicked back as a commission" to NYDOC.

Plaintiff Mary Byrd, 79, suffering from chronic lung disease, is unable to visit her two sons who have been incarcerated since 1983. Her voice contact with them is by collect phone calls. But with MCI's exorbitant charges, she was unable to pay her $150/mo. bills, and was cut off. Although she gets calls via her sister's account now, ...

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) contracted with Unisys Corp. (Bluebell, Pennsylvania) to install new telephone systems in over 110 BOP prisons nationwide. The September 14, 2005 contract awards $37 million for the first three years, expandable in three one-year options to a total of $96 million.

Under the contract's terms, Unisys will install, maintain and program its Inmate Telephone System-3 (ITS-3). Unisys claims the new equipment requires only one-eighth of the current system's hardware space, and will make use of Unisys ES3120 servers programmed with a prisoner telephone software application provided by Value Added Communications of Plano, Texas.

Unique to ITS-3 is that prisoners will be able to pay for their calls in three ways. They may make a direct debit from their prison commissary accounts; they may call collect; or they may use pre-paid collect accounts. Unisys plans to offer similar services to state and local prison markets.

Not announced was what, if any, "kickback" percentage Unisys returns to the BOP or how their billing compares with free market rates for non-prisoners.

Source: Unisys Corp. Press Release, September 14, 2005.

Private Prison Contractor Who Allegedly Diverted $1.6 Million in Telephone
Revenues Sues California DOC

A Bakersfield, California businessman, who lost a contract for his private prison housing California Department of Corrections (CDC) prisoners due to allegations that he misappropriated $1.6 million from prisoner collect telephone call revenues, has filed suit in Kern County Superior Court against CDC for libel, defamation and breach of contract. He claims his reputation and his ability to do business were harmed.

Terry Moreland, affiliated with Marantha Corrections LLC, once operated a CDC Community Corrections Facility in Adelanto, but that contract was constructively terminated when he sold the 550 bed minimum security facility to San Bernardino County while CDC was demanding he return the disputed revenues. (See: PLN, Feb. 2005, p.39.) Moreland has resisted CDC's refund demand for years, arguing that his contract did not require it.

Source: Bakersfield Californian.

by John E. Dannenberg

The Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association (ABA) made a formal recommendation in its Report to the House of Delegates" (August 2005) (Report) that the ABA go on record as urging all federal and state governments to afford Prisoners reasonable opportunity to maintain communication with the free community, and to offer telephone services in the correctional setting with an appropriate range of options at the lowest possible rates.

Recognizing numerous studies that have shown a direct correlation between prisoners' outside community support and their eventual reintegration success, the ABA took a pro-active stand to promote public interest in a responsible corrections telecommunications policy. The Report added that telephone access can contribute to safer prisons by reducing tension via improved morale and better staff-prisoner interactions. Voice communication becomes literally a lifeline since at least 40% of the national prison population is known to be functionally illiterate.

Notwithstanding the accepted need to put controls on telephone abuse by prisoners, the Report noted that many detention entities install draconian limitations that instead frustrate the beneficial purpose of telephone contact. The limitation of collect-only calls severely limits contact with attorneys, a result found by many courts to be ...

In a suit challenging excessive collect call rates charged to prisoners' families, friends and attorneys, the Indiana Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court's dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Chanelle Alexander and others (the Class) pay for collect calls from prisoners in Indiana's state prisons and county jails. On June 16, 2000, the Class filed a suit in state court claiming the state and the county sheriffs entered into contracts with telephone companies AT&T and Ameritech Indiana, respectively. The suit claimed (1) a breach of the common law duty of reasonableness; (2) the unauthorized taxing of a sum of money; (3) the unauthorized imposition of a licensing fee; (4) an unreasonable and unjust rate or service charge; (5) an unjust enrichment; (6) money had and received; (7) the combination to restrain and carry out restrictions on trade; (8) a combination to increase price; and (9) inadequate services and facilities to class members. In exchange for its contract, AT&T agreed to give the state of Indiana a 53 percent commission on long-distance calls from all state pay phones, including state owned buildings such as prisons. Ameritech Indiana agreed to pay Sheriff Jack Cottey a commission of 40 percent ...

Disclosure of Washington State Prisoner Phone Rates Stymied by the Courts

by John E. Dannenberg

When recipients of Washington state prisoner-originated long distance phone calls sought to compel disclosure of the telephone rates for those calls, the Washington superior, appellate and supreme courts held (as of July2004) that relevant Washington statutes which on their faces appear to require such disclosure in fact do not, and instead only provide legal remedies if a complainant demonstrates that underlying Washington regulations flowing from the cited statutes have been violated. The complainants accordingly next sought regulatory relief before the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission (WUTC) on remand from the Superior Court, which on July 18, 2005 ordered the complaint to proceed there in the discovery phase. However, on September 6, 2005, the Superior Court summarily dismissed the entire complaint for lack of standing, without explanation.

Plaintiffs Sandra Judd and attorney Tara Herivel (collectively, Judd) for years received collect phone calls from PLN's Editor, Paul Wright, then a Washington state prisoner. They sought to compel the telephone companies, who were charging exorbitant tolls, to disclose their rate structures. The legal vehicle for the inquiry was Washington Revised Code §§ 80.36.510, .520 and .530. These ...

Mere Pendency of Proceedings Deprives Court of Jurisdiction in Jail Collect Call Case; Attorney Fee Awarded Reversed, Injunction Upheld

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed an award of attorney's fees, holding the mere pendency of proceedings that threatens harm is insufficient to invoke a district court's jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief.

This civil rights action was originally filed by Jeff Lynch, a pretrial detainee at Ohio's Hamilton County Justice Center (HCJC). Lynch alleged that HCJC's policy of allowing prisoners to make only collect telephone calls, in combination with the Hamilton County Public Defender's policy of refusing collect calls operated to deny pretrial detainees at HCJC their Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The second amended complaint added Mike Powers as a plaintiff.

Hamilton County moved to dismiss, based on lack of standing to bring the suit. Lynch was dismissed from the suit on that basis in January 2002. The Ohio Federal District Court, however, held that Powers had standing because he had a capias that was currently outstanding." That factual finding was incorrect. Power's cause of action arose after he was arrested for failing to appear on charge of operating a motor vehicle without a license and improper display ...

Though drugs and weapons have long been a bane to prison officials everywhere, prisons around the country and the world are now experiencing a new contraband problem: cellular telephones.

Texas prison officials learned how serious the problem was during a months-long undercover investigation that began in the fall of 2003. Electronic monitoring by the FBI had revealed that a member of the Texas Syndicate, a violent prison gang, was making and receiving wireless calls from the Darrington prison near Houston.

In the spring of 2004, investigators decided to raid the prisoner's cell--but they forgot to turn off the water. As they entered, the prisoner flushed the cell phone down his toilet. Prison officials, determined to recover the phone, quickly shut down the water lines and ordered several unlucky prisoners into the sewer traps with rakes to drag the bottom.

What happened next must have surprised everyone. They were pulling up cell phones like they were going fishing," said Lt. Terry Cobbs of the prison system's inspector general's office. And you'd think they'd be those inexpensive disposable phones like you buy at Wal-Mart. But we've even been seeing camera phones.

Other states are experiencing similar problems. In Pennsylvania, a 2002 sweep ...

by John E. Dannenberg


In a scenario reminiscent of the Spy versus Spy" cartoon, phone companies are gouging California jail prisoners' families with outlandish collect call rates, while prisoners are defrauding the phone companies by taking advantage of new computerized phones to clandestinely bill their defense attorneys for collect calls cleverly rerouted elsewhere.

An Associated Press investigation revealed that the average California county jail prisoner's local phone calls home cost more than seven times as much as a 50 cent pay-phone call, yielding over $120 million per year in trappings to the phone companies. From this pot, the phone companies pay nearly 50% in kickbacks to the counties for the privilege of gouging their customers - the jail phone contract going to the highest bidder of kickbacks. The annual payola to Los Angeles County alone runs nearly $17 million per year.

Perhaps the greater crime is that the burden of such calls falls upon the lower income families whose members most often land in jail. Worse yet is that when these costs become prohibitive, family contact is lost and the prisoners' broken lifeline to the community only deepens their chances of becoming stuck" in the system. Charles Carbone, an attorney ...