When the Texas legislature passed SB 1580 in 2007, requiring the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to install phones in state prisons, Texas was the only state that did not allow prisoners to make regular phone calls. Even so, the bill faced opposition and only passed because lawmakers expected the calls would generate a lot of revenue. Also, victims’ rights organizations that would otherwise oppose prisoners having phone access were bought off with a promise that they would receive the first $10 million in profits from the new prison phone system.

At the time, the House Research Organization estimated annual profits of between $25 million and $30 million. A more realistic estimate published in the bill’s fiscal note conservatively estimated $7.5 million a year in net income.

The first phones were installed in March 2009, and nine months later the phone installations were complete system-wide. [See: PLN, Feb. 2009, p.27]. Since then, TDCJ prisoners have placed over 4.7 million phone calls and received about 1.8 million emails.
However, the profits were lower than expected. During the first twenty-one months of TDCJ phone operations, Embarq, the company that operates the system, collected $15 million for emails and phone calls. Embarq ...

Washington State Regulatory Agency Finds AT&T Failed to Disclose Prison Collect Call Rates

by Derek Gilna and Brandon Sample

On March 31, 2011, AT&T Communications of the Pacific Northwest was found guilty by the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission of failing to disclose charges for collect calls from various Washington State prisons. According to the Commission’s final order, “based on undisputed facts [the] automated operator services platform used at the prisons ... did not make rate quotes available to consumers as required by Commission rules.”

The Commission referred its conclusions to King County Superior Court for additional fact finding and the ultimate disposition of the claims against AT&T. Sandy Judd and Tara Herivel, who had accepted calls from Washington prisoners, had initially filed the complaint in Superior Court in 2000. The case was referred to the Commission because it has primary jurisdiction over the billing practices of operator service providers (OSPs).

The Commission found that “AT&T violated Commission regulations 480-120-141(5)(a)(1991) and WAC 480-120-141(2)(b)(1999) for collect calls ... [by prisoners] at the Washington State Reformatory, Airway Heights, McNeil Island Penitentiary, or Clallam Bay correctional facilities by failing to verbally advise the consumers [who accepted collect calls from prisoners] to request ...

By Matt Clarke

A New Mexico court of appeals has ruled that jail phone conversations monitored and recorded without prior warning to the prisoner were inadmissible in his criminal prosecution.

Geechie Devane Templeton was arrested by Hobbs, New Mexico, police for possession of cocaine found near where he was hiding following a police chase. In the Hobbs City Jail, Templeton made two phone calls to his girlfriend, one from the booking area and one from another area. Templeton objected without success when prosecutors introduced audio recordings of the phone calls in his trial and claimed they tied him to the cocaine. He was convicted and appealed, alleging the taping of the phone calls violated the Abuse of Privacy Act (APA), NMSA 1978, §§ 30-12-1 to -11.

The court of appeals held that the APA “prohibits interference with certain types of electronic communications, including ‘reading, interrupting, taking or copying any message, communication or report intended for another by telegraph or telephone without the consent of a sender or intended recipient thereof.’” State v. Coyazo, 1997 NMCA 29, 936 P.2d 882. However, consent is implied when the person making or receiving the call is warned in advance that the calls may be ...

PLN’s April 2011 cover story detailed the results of our comprehensive multi-year research project on prison phone services, including a state-by-state comparison of prison phone rates, commission (kickback) percentages, and the amounts of commission payments from prison phone contracts nationwide.

Our research found that based on data from 2007-2008, 42 states receive kickbacks or other payments from prison phone service companies, averaging 41.9% of gross revenue from prison phone calls, which generate over $152 million per year in commission payments.

Further, prison phone rates vary widely among different states and even within the same state, despite the fact that all prison phone companies provide essentially the same service with the same security features. Local collect calls cost as much as $2.75 + $.23/minute (Colorado), intrastate collect calls are as high as $3.95 + $.69/minute (Oregon), and interstate collect calls range up to $4.95 + $.89/minute (Washington).

As prison phone contracts tend to be awarded based on the highest kickback percentage rather than the lowest phone rates, the usual competitive forces that result in lower prices to consumers are largely absent in the prison phone service market. Consequently, prison phone rates, which are primarily paid by prisoners’ families, are artificially and ...

Legislation barring the possession or use of cell phones by federal prisoners, the Cell Phone Contraband Act (S.1749), was signed into law by President Obama in August 2010.

The legislation comes in response to a rising number of cell phone confiscations by the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). In 2009, over 2,600 cell phones were discovered in minimum security prison camps. Another 600 were found in the BOP’s low, medium and high security facilities.

The new law makes possession or use of a cell phone or wireless device a crime punishable by up to a year in prison. The law also covers the smuggling of cell phones into BOP facilities.

“Now that this bill has become law, prison gangs will no longer be able to use cell phones to direct criminal attacks on individuals, to decide territory for the distribution of drugs, or conduct credit card fraud,” said Democratic U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein, a co-sponsor of the bill.

A report on the effectiveness of the new federal law is due by August 2011. The report will also address the prison telephone rates charged by the BOP. [See: PLN, April 2011, p.1].

The California legislature passed a similar bill, SB525, in ...

by John E. Dannenberg

An exhaustive analysis of prison phone contracts nationwide has revealed that with only limited exceptions, telephone service providers offer lucrative kickbacks (politely termed “commissions”) to state contracting agencies – amounting on average to 42% of gross revenues from prisoners’ phone calls – in order to obtain exclusive, monopolistic contracts for prison phone services.

These contracts are priced not only to unjustly enrich the telephone companies by charging much higher rates than those paid by the general public, but are further inflated to cover the commission payments, which suck over $143 million per year out of the pockets of prisoners’ families – who are the overwhelming recipients of prison phone calls. Averaging a 42% kickback nationwide, this indicates that the phone market in state prison systems is worth more than an estimated $362 million annually in gross revenue.

In a research task never before accomplished, Prison Legal News, using public records laws, secured prison phone contract information from all 50 states (compiled in 2008-2009 and representing data from 2007-2008). The initial survey was conducted by PLN contributing writer Mike Rigby, with follow-up research by PLN associate editor Alex Friedmann.

The phone contracts were reviewed to determine the ...

by Mike Rigby

It is common knowledge among PLN readers that prison and jail phone rates are priced far above those in the free world. But just how overpriced are they? What is the average kickback (commission) rate provided by phone companies, and how much in kickbacks is paid each year nationwide?

In an effort to obtain a comprehensive overview of the prison phone market, I was hired to help acquire phone contracts, rate information and commission data from all 50 state prison systems as well as the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and selected county jails. I requested the same data from all agencies yet the responses, and what was initially produced, varied widely.

Responses to the requests for phone data were varied, but the norm was a mixture of bureaucracy and indifference. I was often routed from department to department, from one person to another, before reaching someone who had the authority or initiative to provide the requested information.

For example, the Alabama Department of Corrections (DOC) readily produced its commission data, but obtaining the prison phone contracts from the uncooperative state purchasing department took multiple calls and emails to 5 different agency officials.
Actually obtaining copies of ...

by Mike Brodheim

Sick and tired of being gouged by high prison phone rates, Nadia Alvarez and Rachel Fishenfeld, two California residents, filed a consumer class action suit against Global Tel*Link (GTL) in August 2010. GTL, a major telecommunications company that contracts with prisons and jails throughout the country to provide phone services, was accused of engaging in unfair business practices in violation of both federal law and California state law.

Alvarez and Fishenfeld sought certification of a class consisting of all United States residents who, within two years of the filing of the suit, paid for GTL’s services so they could receive phone calls from someone in a jail or prison. The plaintiffs also sought to certify a subclass of California residents only, consisting of those who paid for GTL’s services during the four years prior to the filing of the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs were represented by J. Paul Gignac, a partner at Arias Ozzello & Gignac LLP of Santa Barbara, as well as Steven S. Derelian of Pasadena and Eugene Feldman of Hermosa Beach – counsel with experience in handling class action litigation on behalf of consumers.

In their complaint, Alvarez and Fishenfeld stated that GTL is an ...

A report issued by the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as part of an audit to determine whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials are properly administering prison telephone systems found that changes must be made to bring ICE into full compliance with applicable standards and contract provisions.

According to the report, although ICE has made “considerable progress in assuring detainees’ access to contractor telephone and pro-bono services at ... sites where the majority of illegal aliens are detained ... additional controls are needed to ensure contractor compliance....”

ICE currently operates 15 Service Processing Centers and Contractor Operated Facilities that house 10,000 immigrant detainees. An additional 20,000 ICE prisoners are held in 215 Intergovernmental Service Agreement detention facilities. ICE also operates “hold rooms” in the agency’s field and sub-offices which “presently do not offer telephone services.” [See, e.g., PLN, Sept. 2010, p.22].

Past complaints related to ICE telephone practices have included lack of phones in ICE “hold rooms” and many ICE contract facilities, “pro-bono” phone lines that are non-operable, and excessive charges for calls to detainees’ families and legal assistance organizations. Although the Inspector General’s report does not mention these problems directly, it clearly ...

For decades, prison officials across the U.S. have lined their pockets with multi-million dollar kickbacks from telephone companies that are awarded lucrative prisoner phone service contracts. In doing so, they unwittingly created an “epidemic” that they are now desperately scrambling – and largely failing – to control. Namely, the excessive phone rates that are forced on prisoners and their families have spawned a black market for contraband cell phones smuggled in by guards and other prison employees.

Nowhere is this problem more evident than in California, America’s largest state prison system. In 2009, 300 California prison employees were disciplined for suspected cell phone trafficking to prisoners, and about 100 of those staff members were fired. By mid-year 2010 an additional 150 prison employees had been disciplined.

With contraband cell phones selling for $500 or more, the problem is not going away anytime soon. In 2009, a California guard confessed to earning $100,000 in just 12 months by smuggling cell phones, according to Deputy Director of Adult Institutions Richard Subia.

Contraband cell phones are ubiquitous in every prison, from minimum-security facilities to death row, said Subia. In 2009, California prison officials confiscated 6,995 illegal cell phones, up from 2,800 the year ...