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, ...

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 ...