Prison Phone Justice

November 17, 2012

The petition of the Center for Constitutional Rights and its partners, filed in 2007, should be
upheld. That petition requests that the FCC establish benchmark rates for all interstate inmate
calling services at $.25 per minute for collect calls and $.20 per minute for debit calling.
Further, the exclusive contracts entered into between prisons and jails with telephone
companies allow both the prisons and the companies to unjustly enrich themselves, as pointed
out in the Wright Petition. Those contracts violate, among others, prisoners' rights to maintain
family relations. Such contracts should be enjoined.
Commissions to prisons and jails from telephone companies should be eliminated. In Ohio the
Department of Rehabilitation and Correction contract specifies that Global Tel-Link will pay the
department $15 million a year -- adjusted for inflation. That, together with the lack of
competition among companies that provide long-distance prisoner telephone service to prisons
and jails, is the underlying cause of the outrageous and exorbitant telephone rates charged to
the friends and families of incarcerated Ohioans.
Maintaining meaningful communication between incarcerated people and their family members
is essential to successful social reintegration of formerly incarcerated people. It reduces
recidivism and helps with rehabilitation -- and that reduces crime and the future cost of prisons.
Excessive prisoner telephone rates weaken family and community ties, increasing the likelihood
of successful reentry into the community after release.
The system is wrong because innocent citizens are now paying excessive telephone charges, just
because they have a family member or loved one who is incarcerated.
COPA urges you to help incarcerated people stay connected to their friends, family, and loved
ones by capping interstate prison telephone rates, by eliminating commissions to prisons, and
by eliminating exclusive contracts between prisons and telephone companies.
Sincerely,
Tekla Lewin

Central Ohio Prisoner Advocates

http://centralohioprisoneradvocates.wordpress.com/
<centralohio.prisoneradvocates@gmail.com>
5100 Kingshill Drive

Columbus, OH 43229