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The FCC ruled against excessive phone charges to inmates (story linked below). So what, you may ask. It's easy to be calloused towards jail inmates. "They deserve what they get", the thinking goes, followed by, "Society coddles them too much."
In my experience, the inmate's family are impacted the most by phone charges at the jail. The Charges are excessively high. To place a call from jail, an inmate must call collect, whether the inmate has been convicted or not. A 5 minute local call costs upwards of $20.
Hopefully, you've never received a call like that, but it starts with the recording, "This is a COLLECT call from the -blank- Detention Facility..." In order to accept the call, you must type in a credit card number.
An inmate's family bears lots of expense when a family member goes to jail. The costs include defense costs, fines, penalties, loss of income, child care, pet care, hygiene essentials purchased from the jail commissary, and collect phone calls. Often times the family has no choice but to decline the phone call. Jail staff will tell you that lack of communication with family results in higher incidents of disruptive behavior. Disruptive behavior increases danger to staff, other inmates, and requires greater use of resources to quell.
Companies bid against each other for the lucrative contract to provide phone services to a detention facility. The contracts routinely include kick-backs to the detention facility. Detention managers justify the gouging by using the revenue to fund programs cut by county budgets. Programs such as, an inmate library, high school education classes, coping skills classes, and substance abuse treatment have been funded by phone service revenues.
Realignment encourages social service providers to participate in the setting of criminal justice system priorities and budgets. In-custody treatment programs will be more effective when created and funded in a proper budget process than backfilled from phone service kick-backs. And, inmates will be better able to maintain connection with their families, which makes for a safer jail environment, and improved recidivism rates once the inmate is released from custody.
http://cnet.co/17cWRi3
In my experience, the inmate's family are impacted the most by phone charges at the jail. The Charges are excessively high. To place a call from jail, an inmate must call collect, whether the inmate has been convicted or not. A 5 minute local call costs upwards of $20.
Hopefully, you've never received a call like that, but it starts with the recording, "This is a COLLECT call from the -blank- Detention Facility..." In order to accept the call, you must type in a credit card number.
An inmate's family bears lots of expense when a family member goes to jail. The costs include defense costs, fines, penalties, loss of income, child care, pet care, hygiene essentials purchased from the jail commissary, and collect phone calls. Often times the family has no choice but to decline the phone call. Jail staff will tell you that lack of communication with family results in higher incidents of disruptive behavior. Disruptive behavior increases danger to staff, other inmates, and requires greater use of resources to quell.
Companies bid against each other for the lucrative contract to provide phone services to a detention facility. The contracts routinely include kick-backs to the detention facility. Detention managers justify the gouging by using the revenue to fund programs cut by county budgets. Programs such as, an inmate library, high school education classes, coping skills classes, and substance abuse treatment have been funded by phone service revenues.
Realignment encourages social service providers to participate in the setting of criminal justice system priorities and budgets. In-custody treatment programs will be more effective when created and funded in a proper budget process than backfilled from phone service kick-backs. And, inmates will be better able to maintain connection with their families, which makes for a safer jail environment, and improved recidivism rates once the inmate is released from custody.
http://cnet.co/17cWRi3
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