Our study of 14 jails finds that there were 8% more overall minutes used during the pandemic, despite the fact that nationwide jail populations have fallen about 15%.

by Andrea Fenster, Prison Policy Initiative

People in jails spent 8% more time on the phone over a three-month period of 2020 than in the same timeframe of 2019, according to data gathered from facilities around the country. This may come as a surprise, considering that there were fewer people behind bars to make these calls: Jail populations have fallen about 15% on average since March 2020, thanks to modest COVID-19 protection measures.

But, like the jail population reductions, the increase in phone minutes is attributable to COVID-19. Across the country, COVID-19 cases have ballooned in prisons and jails. Insufficient medical care, aging populations, poor preparedness, inability to social distance, and lack of sanitation combine in correctional facilities to create deadly conditions amidst a global pandemic. As a result, many jails have suspended in-person visitation, leaving phone and video calls as the main way for people to communicate with loved ones.

It makes sense, then, that more minutes were used in 2020 than 2019. This increase was attributable to both longer and more ...

Monday, November 30, 2020, was a big day for a group of Georgia prisoners suing their phone service provider, Global Tel*Link (GTL), over the company’s allegedly hidden policy of confiscating any unused funds in their accounts after 90 days.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg granted the suit class action status and smacked GTL with sanctions — including the cost of plaintiffs’ legal fees — after finding the firm had played fast and loose with legal rules. (See related story on this page.)

The case potentially sets the stage for a second large judgment against GTL in just a few months. In October 2020, a federal judge in New Jersey approved a $25 million settlement to satisfy a class-action suit filed in 2011 by prisoners in the state. In that case, the court found GTL guilty of receiving kickbacks from overly inflated prices, charging its prisoner customers as much as 100 times the going rate for a call (See PLN, Dec. 2020, p. 24).

The Georgia prisoners filed their suit in 2015, accusing GTL of violating the Federal Communication Act, as well state laws against breach of contract and unjust enrichment. At issue was the firm’s habit of cleaning out ...

by Derek Gilna

Global Tel*Link (GTL) has long been one of the principal beneficiaries of the $1 billion prisoner call industry, through a combination of astute business practices, intense lobbying, and a business model of questionable propriety, if not illegality. GTL, which has been a defendant in multiple lawsuits by dissatisfied customers, was sanctioned in a Georgia class action on November 30, 2020 for serious discovery violations.

The GTL business model required any individual who wished to communicate by telephone with an incarcerated person to first deposit money in a GTL account, from which the cost of each call was deducted. However, as noted by the judge in the Georgia litigation, “if a GTL customer has not had any activity in her account in ninety days, GTL takes whatever money is left in the account.” Plaintiffs alleged that this practice was not disclosed to them.

Federal court rules provide for “discovery,” in which each party can submit written questions, or “interrogatories,” and take sworn depositions of individuals with knowledge of the subject matter of the litigation, an expensive process. GTL produced thousands of pages of difficult-to-analyze documents, materials and testimony that purported to show that individuals depositing money were told ...

by Douglas Ankney

On July 31, 2020, a motion was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri revealing that CoreCivic and Securus Technologies (Defendants) had agreed to pay $3.7 million to settle a lawsuit alleging illegal recording of attorney-client conversations at the Leavenworth Detention Center (LDC) in Kansas City, Missouri.

The complaint was filed on August 31, 2016, by attorney Adam Crane on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated (Plaintiffs). It alleged that Defendants violated Kansas and Missouri wiretapping statutes (K.S.A. 2-2502, et seq. and RsMo 542.010, et seq.) when they recorded phone calls, video consultations, and in-person conversations between attorneys and their clients at the LDC.

Attorney David Johnson replaced Adam Crane as the named plaintiff in March 2018. At that time the complaint was amended to allege violations of the Federal Wiretap Act (18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq.).

According to the complaint, CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) is a for-profit corporation based in Maryland that operates state and federal prisons, jails and detention facilities, including the LDC. Securus Technologies is a private corporation that provides telephonic communication and recording equipment for CoreCivic at the LDC.
Plaintiffs alleged that, as ...

by Kevin Bliss

Lockdowns instituted because of the coronavirus pandemic have had a benefit for Scottish prisoners. The Scottish Prison Services (SPS) spent over 160,000 pounds on mobile phones for prisoners to stay in touch with their families.

The SPS introduced mobile phones into its prison system as a means of maintaining contact with loved ones without having to stand in queues waiting on a public phone. “The SPS has supported the mental health of prisoners by continuing family contact with the introduction of virtual visits and mobile phone access, with appropriate safeguards,” said a Scottish government spokesperson. “The use of these new methods of contact will continue to provide support as we transition out of lockdown.”

The phones are simple devices that cannot access the internet or social media, cannot take pictures and are blocked from receiving incoming calls. Prisoners are allowed 20 phone numbers approved by administration, which they can call any time during the day, paid for by taxes.

Statistics show that recidivism is affected by close community ties and prisoners are more likely to reoffend when they lose contact with family and friends. Activists state that these mobile phones help to improve the quality of life ...

by Matt Clarke

Members of National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) maintained their place at the forefront of the movement for racial justice even while encapsulated in the National Basketball Association (NBA) bubble during the 2020 championship playoffs. The basketball court inside the Disney World bubble was proudly emblazoned with “Black Lives Matter” with an impossible-to-miss font size.

NBPA members went on a three-day playoff strike in August 2020, triggered by the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who was left paralyzed, shot seven times as he leaned into a car. The strike resulted in an agreement between the league and players to establish a social-justice coalition and associated advertising with a focus on civic engagement, ballot access and reform of police and the criminal justice system. Franchises that own their own arenas pledged to “work with local elections officials to convert the facility into a voting location for the 2020 election.”

Yet the players and league were strangely silent about one of the owners exploiting incarcerated individuals for profit.

As reported in The American Prospect, Tom Gores, the owner of the Detroit Pistons NBA franchise, is a billionaire who founded Platinum Equity, a private ...

by David M. Reutter

For those with loved ones in prisons, the coronavirus pandemic has increased the desire for communication to ensure the well-being of the imprisoned. The exorbitant cost of such calls is straining already-stretched budgets.

Most prisons have curtailed visitation, leaving families to communicate via phone calls, video chats, emails, and letters. Because prisons are cramped-quartered Petri dishes, families seek communication more often with their incarcerated loved one. The cost for services to communicate from prison are expensive, and as most prisoners rely on their family for money, those costs are born by their families.

Dominique Jones-Johnson said the cost of communicating with her father has strained her budget to the breaking point. Her father, Charles Brown, Jr., is serving time at Louisiana State Prison. A 15-minute call from the prison costs $3.15. By May 2020, Jones-Johnson had accrued nearly $400 for calls from the prison. The local calls would be free for anyone in the state but prisoners.

Jones-Johnson, who founded the charity Daughters Beyond Incarceration, said “the money stressed me out, but not talking to him stresses me out more.” That stress increased when Brown tested positive for COVID-19 in September 2020, and he was placed ...

by Derek Gilna

On October 22, 2020, New Jersey federal district court Judge William J. Martini ended a seven-year class action brought by New Jersey Department of Correction (DOC) prisoners complaining of excessive phone fees levied by Global Tel*Link (GTL), approving a settlement fund of $25 million. Prisoners had alleged that the company charged up to 100 times the actual cost of calls made from jail, stemming in part from of the practice of GTL paying high commissions to participating correctional institutions.

Under the terms of the settlement, individuals incarcerated in New Jersey prison and jails between 2006 and 2016 who used the GTL phone system, as well as individuals who received telephone calls through the company from New Jersey prisoners before June 2010 or in Essex County, N.J., before June 2011, would be able to file claims.

GTL also had been heavily criticized for requiring people receiving calls from a prisoner to make deposits into a company account and then keeping those deposits if the accounts became “inactive,” generally after the prisoner had been released. Plaintiffs had alleged in their initial complaint that, “Defendants fail(ed) to inform their customers that they will be charged a service or set-up fee ...

by David M. Reutter

Renegotiation of its jail telephone contract netted Pennsylvania’s Lehigh County an unbudgeted $225,000 windfall. Mark Pinsley, the county comptroller, urged county officials to put that “revenue back into efforts to aid those held in the county jail.”

Pinsley’s March 5, 2020, letter noted that research shows “that contact with families during incarceration is closely associated with a more successful reentry and a reduction in reoffending.” He noted that prisoners face “enormous social and economic challenges resulting from their time behind bars.”

Pinsley recommended “the county use these funds to either reduce the cost of calls or provide additional assistance.” The county also could “invest in preventive measures that reduce the likelihood of incarceration and violence in our communities. The scourge of violence, particularly which afflicts our inner-city communities has had a devastating impact on families and neighborhoods,” he wrote.

County Executive Phillips Armstrong and Director of General Services Rick Molchany said revenue the jail generates goes back into its operations. They also noted, without providing details, that they had bolstered efforts to reduce recidivism. Under the new contract, jail detainees still pay the same amount for calls. The cost ranges from 21 cents to 25 cents ...

by Ed Lyon

At least two Massachusetts sheriffs offer rehabilitative programs to prisoners in their jails. Hampden County Sheriff Nick Cocchi’s jail holds anger management, domestic violence classes and employment seminars while providing bus service to and from the jail for visitors. Worcester County Sheriff Lewis Evangelidis’ jail holds mental health, education, substance abuse and music programs.

These programs are funded through telephone revenue “commissions” paid to Cocchi by ICSolutions and to Evangelidis by Securus.

Phone rates in Cocchi’s jail are 12¢ per minute with “commissions” totaling about $820,000 annually. Phone rates in Evangelidis’ jail are $3 for the first minute and 15¢ per each subsequent minute, with “commissions” totaling about $300,000 annually.

Both sheriffs say they allow for free phone calls because of the pandemic. They are having to run three and four classes per program each week in order to meet distancing requirements, adding costs to keep them ongoing. They state phone “commissions” pay the costs for these programs.

They claim to be severely underfunded by lawmakers and cannot continue rehabilitative programming without phone provider “commissions.” Nonetheless, the state legislature in October 2020 was considering Senate Bill 2846 (previously Senate Bill 1372) that would require prisons and jails ...