By Paul Wright

As part of the nationwide trend towards more restrictive and more expensive prison phone systems, the Massachusetts DOC signed a contract with NYNEX on January 27, 1994, for the provision of phone services to Massachusetts prisons. The new phone system includes monitoring and taping of all calls; the pre-approval by the prison warden of all numbers to be called; the listing, by name, of each person the prisoner will call; the limiting of total personal numbers to ten per prisoner; limiting of all attorney numbers to five. All calls are made by a recorded voice announcing that the call is coming from a prison. The length of calls is limited and the new system disallows use of third party and call waiting services. Prisoners seeking to change or add a number to their approved list (say a relative moves) can only do so once every three months.

In order to use the system prisoners must accept a Personal Identification Number (PINS). Massachusetts prisoners have actively resisted the imposition of the new phone system., which went on line in April, 1994. At Bay State, a prison housing mainly long term prisoners, of 266 prisoners only 17 took PINS ...

This case deals with a class action suit filed by Arizona state prisoners. They claimed that Arizona prison officials denied them access to the courts by enacting policies that unduly abridged their ability to file and litigate court actions. The district court ruled in the prisoners' favor on all counts.  This is an excellent ruling for jailhouse lawyers, especially those in control units.

The court ruled that the "paging system" for legal materials, where prisoners denied access to the prison law library must submit a request for specific legal materials to be brought to their cells, was constitutionally deficient and did not provide adequate access to the courts.

Untrained prisoner legal assistants cannot provide constitutionally adequate access to the courts for prisoners denied physical access to a law library. This is especially true for illiterate or non-English speaking prisoners for whom law books alone cannot ensure access to the courts. In the absence of a program providing prisoners with lawyers or paralegals the ADOC must maintain a sufficient number of minimally trained prisoner legal assistants.

To be adequate a prison law library must be staffed by a person with adequate legal training. A law library staffed only by security officers ...

Milton Griffin-El is a Missouri state prisoner. He filed suit against MCI Telecommunications Corporation and state prison officials over the phone company's practice of announcing to persons called by prisoners that the calls originated from a prison. The court upheld MCI's practice of paying it's 25% commission to the Missouri state General Revenue Fund rather than to the DOC's Human Resources Canteen Fund. Because this a developing area of prison law this case should be studied by those contemplating litigation concerning prison phone systems.

The district court ruled that by entering into a contract with the Missouri DOC, MCI became a state actor suable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The legal test to determine if a private party is or has become a state actor for 1983 purposes is whether the private party has acted with, or obtained significant aid from state officials or otherwise done as the state commands. See: Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co. Inc., 457 US 922, 102 S.Ct. 2744 (1982). In this case MCI and the Missouri DOC had a symbiotic relationship and both fiscally profited from it. See: Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 US 715, 81 S.Ct. 856 (1961).

The contract for phone services ...

Several animal rights protestors arrested while demonstrating against an annual pigeon shoot filed suit against Schuykill County Prison in Pennsylvania, and it's officials, alleging that the conditions of confinement during their stay at the prison violated their constitutional rights. The conditions complained of in the suit include: double celling of pre-trial detainees, blanket strip and body cavity searches of all arrestees and restricted telephone access during the first 48 hours of captivity. In several cases the plaintiffs spent up to two weeks sleeping on a mattress on the floor in a double cell or a common area. Prisoners were not allowed telephone access for the first 48 hours of confinement except for attorney, bail and family notification. All detainees were subjected to a visual body cavity and strip search under a blanket policy that made no distinctions for offenses, prior record or individual suspicion of having contraband.

The district court held that the sleeping arrangements in the prison, with all prisoners double celled or sleeping on the floors, violated their constitutional rights. Noting there is nothing unconstitutional per se about double celling, the court notes that forcing pretrial detainee to sleep on the floor imposes punishment which is forbidden by ...

By Paul Wright

In June of 1993 Global Tel-Link won a 3 year contract with the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections to install about 875 phones and handle all collect calls placed from the state's 16 adult and juvenile facilities. The company, which mentioned the "profitability of prisons" in its bid document, agreed to pay the state at least $5 million annually in commissions. Global's revenues come from the persons who accept the collect calls placed by the prisoners.

Since taking over the phone services Global has massively increased the rate it charges for the calls. For example, a 15 minute call from the prison at Angola to New Orleans increased from $3.60 to $6.90. This increase led to a mass number of complaints being filed by prisoners, their families, advocates and attorneys with prison officials and the Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC). They also complained that the quality of service has declined with callers unable to hear each other.

Noting that, in violation of it's contract, Global was charging higher rates than other local carriers such as ATT, Corrections Undersecretary James LeBlanc ordered Global to reduce it's rates and reimburse customers who had been overcharged since June ...

On October 13, 1993, Judge Henry Wilhoit of the U.S. District Court in Kentucky entered a preliminary injunction barring the federal Bureau of Prisons from implementing its Inmate Telephone System (ITS). The case is Washington v. Reno, case number 93-217 and 93-290. Readers should note that so far this is an unpublished opinion that cannot be cited for precedent, but it does affect all BOP facilities in the U.S.

Conchita Washington and several other prisoners at the federal prison for women in Lexington, Kentucky, filed suit claiming that the BOP is ITS discriminates against poor and disabled prisoners. The BOP began implementing a phone system, ITS, which changed its phone system from one which allowed collect calls only to one which is direct dial requiring prisoners to pay for the calls. In order to be able to make phone calls prisoners must also participate in the "Inmate Financial Responsibility Program," IFRP. The IFRP is a coercive program designed to force prisoners to pay all fines, restitution, etc. All funds received by a prisoner from any source are subjected to IFRP collection. Thus, prisoners who do not wish to participate in the IFRP receive virtually no phone privileges. Non-IFRP participants are ...

This case involves a class action suit filed by Oklahoma death row prisoners and prisoners in the control unit of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. The case provides a revealing look at the mentality driving the construction of control units.

The OSP control unit is called H Unit. It was opened in November of 1991, planned and designed by an informal DOC committee. The court states: "The philosophy and design of the new unit were modeled on the federal penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, the highest security facility in the federal prison system. There is no direct proof or reasonable inference that this non-contact philosophy was in response to any specific act or situation that existed in H block. Rather, it appears to be a general philosophy that the less the contact the less the danger."

When H Unit opened prison officials had made no provision for confidential attorney visitation. The current attorney-client visitation provisions are what is being challenged in this suit. The accommodations have the attorney separated from his client by grated plexiglass and a barred window. There is a pass-through space 16 inches wide and 4 inches high. All the attorneys and clients who have used the cubicle testified ...

A detainee held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) at San Diego, named Gust Janis, was awaiting trial on federal drug manufacturing and possession charges. Janis was also involved in a number of other criminal and civil cases, telling the court he has some sixty-seven civil actions pending. Janis filed a motion, in connection with his criminal case, claiming that his right of access to the courts was effectively denied by various shortcoming in the legal research facilities at the jail (MCC).

The threshold question was whether the right of access to the courts includes general civil litigation, as the issue had not been squarely addressed in the ninth circuit. The district court adopted the reasoning of the fifth and eleventh circuits, holding that the constitutional right of access to the courts includes access for general civil legal matters. This was an issue because the MCC law library did not provide materials for civil research.

The court ordered that Janis be given access to state law on various subjects (because of the detainers on him from several states), that selected civil law books be provided to him, that the federal criminal law in the jail's law library be expanded and ...

Nearly a year and a half after a scandal about purchasing involving the North Carolina Coin Tel Company has passed. The grand jury has finally indicted two people in the illegal activities.

The indictments handed down against D.R. Hursey and Michael A. Weaver focus on a $1.2 million dollar contract for maintenance of prison pay phones used by prisoners.

Hursey is the correction department's former director of departmental services, which controlled all purchasing for state prisons. Weaver was an AT&T account executive and one of the owners of Coin Tel Inc., the company that received the maintenance contract.

Auditors said the purchasing irregularities cost tax payers $7.2 million in wasted or misspent funds.

Former Corrections Secretary Aaron Johnson resigned last year in the wake of the purchasing problems. Six other officials either resigned, retired or were transferred to other state jobs.

According to the indictments handed down by the Wake County grand jury, Hursey and Weaver engaged in a bid rigging conspiracy between January, 1989, and September, 1992, that involved contracts for the purchase of telephones and telephone services. These included the collection of coins from prison pay phones, prison pay phone maintenance and management of phones located in the ...

I have read the article which appeared in PLN (Vol. 4, number 4) by Paul Wright about the prison telephone system. I was amazed to learn that the Washington DOC telephone contract states that the commission checks are sent to each institution and made payable to the Inmate Welfare Fund. That is not the case in Michigan.

The Michigan DOC keeps" all commissions paid by the telephone companies in spite of our protests. The Inmate Benefit Fund does not receive a single penny. We are currently litigating the matter and we hope to be successful.

B.K. Jackson, MI.