Starting on August 8th, prisoners at C.B.C.C. were treated to a new phone service, one run by a computer. You pick up the phone ant the machine asks for your name and the number you want to call. It hen dials the number and tells the person at the other end: "Will you accept a collect call from Such and Such, who is a prisoner in a correctional institution? If so, press `three' on your touch-tone phone." The electronic operator then times your call, and after nine minutes warns you that you have one minute left. At ten minutes the phone is automatically cut off.

Needless to say, this new system is not a big hit with C.B.C.C. prisoners. Indeed, since many of the families and loved ones of prisoners are poor, they cannot afford the more expensive touch-tone phones. This of course has the effect of denying phone rights to those men with the poorest families.

Look for the arrival of this "brave new world" of phone service at a prison near you.