Cleaning up Mississippi's Supermax: Conditions Suit Settled

by David M. Reutter

A class action lawsuit filed on behalf of prisoners at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman charged that the totality of conditions are so "hellish" that it makes "Unit 32 the worst place to be incarcerated in Mississippi, perhaps the nation." The suit forced prison officials into a consent decree to upgrade Unit 32's conditions.

Unit 32 is a supermax facility that comprises five buildings, housing around 1,000 men. It imposes forced lockdown of 23 to 24 hours a day in total isolation. Many prisoners have been there for years. Often, they are confined for arbitrary reasons such as being HIV-positive, have special medical needs, are severely ill, or have requested protective custody. Generally, prisoners are not given advance notice or an explanation why they have been placed in Unit 32, nor do they receive information on how they can be removed from there.

With enforced idleness and isolation being imposed, the mentally ill regress, making the unit into a miniature hell. Those prisoners scream, moan, curse, make animal noises, engage in maniacal laughter, and have hallucinatory ravings. This prevents those holding onto their sanity from being able to ...

by Steven J. Jackson

The prison communication industries occupy a large and significant blind spot within the literature of critical communication scholarship and the social sciences more generally. Professional arguments around crime, punishment and the American prison system have dealt with communication issues as a footnote, if at all.

For their part, communication scholars have largely ignored the question of prisons, neglecting almost entirely their unique communicative forms, institutions, and industrial structures. But as historians and social theorists have come to appreciate, prisons often mirror, in uncanny and revealing ways, the societies that produce them. So too in the more specific institutional world of correctional communications, whose distinctive characteristics speak to pressing issues in the field of communication writ large: the dangers and abuse of monopoly power; the attendant need (and frequent failure) of regulation; the sometimes dubious marriage of state and corporate interest; and ultimately the role of social movement and citizen mobilization in moderating the worst abuses of state and corporate power.

This article tells a small but important part of the larger prison communication story: the rise in the 1990s of a deeply inequitable pricing scheme that has seen the cost of prisoner phone calls skyrocket, even ...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has reversed a Colorado state prisoner?s administrative segregation (Ad Seg) conditions of confinement claims which were dismissed as frivolous by the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.

Ronald Fogle was housed in continuous Ad Seg confinement in three state prisons from September 2000 to August 2003. He was locked down all but five hours per week and alleges he was denied access to a telephone, showers, outdoor exercise, law library, and programs offered to the general population.

In June 2005, Fogle filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint alleging numerous claims. He sought pauper status which was granted. He then paid the entire filing fee but because pauper status was initially granted, the district court undertook a review of the claims for frivolousness pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(I). All claims were dismissed as frivolous.

On appeal, the Tenth Circuit held that a due process claim stemming from Ad Seg placement hearings was not frivolous. The district court abused its discretion in concluding Fogle?s three-year Ad Seg placement was not atypical and significant, under Sandin v. Conner, 115 S.Ct. 2293 (1995), and thus had no arguable basis. ...

The competitive bid process is normally used by state agencies to compel companies to compete with lower bids while providing the same service. Usually, the lowest bid prevails. In the case of providing collect calls for Missouri prisons, the contract was awarded to a company that provided a bid that was higher than three other competitors.

Selecting the higher bidder will cost family and friends of Missouri prisoners about $3.4 million a year more than if the lowest bid had been accepted. Why allow this money to go into the pockets of providers? asks Sen. Maida Coleman.

Prison Officials say the new provider will still result in a savings of about $2 million a year over the current service. The new contract was awarded to Public Communications Services (PCS).

PCS bid charges 10 cents a minute for long distance calls, compared to 7 cents a minute under the cheapest bid. A local call under PCS will be $4.50 plus a $1 surcharge for a 35 minute call. In contrast, the lowest bidder, Consolidated Communications Public Services, proposed 95 cents for local calls regardless of the duration.

Prison officials justify high prisoner phone calls on the need for equipment to record ...

In April 2006 a Texas prisoner was sentenced to 40 years in prison for possessing a contraband cell phone--8 years more than the 32-year sentence he was already serving for auto theft.

The sentence, the longest anyone has received since the Texas legislature made possession of a cell phone in prison a third degree felony, is extreme. Prosecutors in Brazoria County never alleged that Manor, 41, used the cell phone to carry out illegal activity or circumvent prison security. Rather, the evidence shows only that he used it to call his sister. "I was so surprised just to hear my brother's voice", said Shirley Manor, a contract worker for the Texas Department of Health. "He just asked us how we were doing". Before the call, said Ms. Manor, she hadnt seen or heard from her brother in years.

Lawmakers in most states worry about contraband cell phones because the calls cant be monitored. This allows prisoners to maintain gang ties on the outside or to conduct criminal activity, they say. In Texas, however, this is not the case. Prisoners in the Lone Star State have no access to pay phones, and, in most cases, are imprisoned much too far from ...

by David M. Reutter

For over 10 years, the family and friends of Florida prisoners have paid exorbitant costs to communicate with their imprisoned loved one. I dont think that's right, said interim secretary of Florida's Department of Corrections, James McDonough, upon hearing of those costs. Why are (the families of prisoners) being punished? In April 2006, McDonough took action to reduce those phone costs by 30%.

McDonough knows what it is like to be separated; he has three sons in the military overseas. He said he pays 3 cents a minute to make international calls.

In contrast, a collect call from a Florida prisoner to an in-state party costs $1.50 when you pick up the phone and 26 cents a minute after that. Calls out-of-state are upwards of $20 for a 15 minute call.

FDOC's contract with its phone vendor: Verizon/MCI requires that FDOC receive 53 percent of all call revenue. In fiscal year 2004-2005, FDOC netted $17.6 million in phone revenue. The reduction of 30 percent will reduce that take by about $10 million. Verizon/MCIs revenue will not be affected.

Although this action may in fact cause a decrease in the return to the general revenue fund, I ...

Virginia's General Assembly reneged on their agreement with a prisoner advocate group to substantially reduce phone rates between prisoners and their families.

Virginia's Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE) had lobbied for years to have a state-approved prepaid phone system for prisoners calling their families. The newly acquired service took effect on February 1, 2005, and promised as much as a two-thirds savings over current rates. The result was not even close.

Under the original phone service a 15-minute, interstate call cost $9.20. The same call is now $8.40, a savings of less than 10 percent.  It's not that cheaper rates are not available. That same $8.40 call from a Virginia state prison costs only $3.45 from a Virginia federal prison.

They're sticking it to us again, said CURE Director Jean Auldridge. The General Assembly doesn't want to give up the money.  The money Ms. Auldridge refers to is the 40 percent commission MCI pays the state for the prisoner phone contract. Annual revenue for state coffers in 2005 was $7 million, an average of $225 per prisoner.

MCI and Verizon also made almost $2 million in political campaign contributions to Virginia legislators in 2005.

MCI's prison phone ...

The mother and son of a prisoner who committed suicide by hanging himself from a telephone in his jail cell won a lawsuit against the phone provider. On appeal, the award was upheld, but some of the costs awarded were not.

Rolando Domingo Montez was 19-years old when he was arrested for public intoxication on November 14, 1999. He was placed in a cell at the Port Isabel (Texas) City Jail. Also in the cell was a coinless (collect calls only) telephone which had been placed there by JCW Electronics under contract to the City of Port Isabel to provide telephone services to the jail. The next day, Montez used the phone to call his mother three times, asking her to post bail. While they were trying to raise bail money, the mother and Montezs girlfriend (who was the mother of his son) were told that he would be released on personal recognizance at 17:00 on November 16, 1999. However, when Montezs mother arrived at the jail to pick him up, he was discovered hanging by the phone cord in the jail cell.

The mother, girlfriend and son filed a personal injury suit in state court against the phone provider ...

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, ...