Search | Prison Phone Justice

Massachusetts Jail Phone Cost Reductions Under Attack

Article • November 1, 2020 • from PLN November, 2020

Filed under: Telephone Rates

Evangelidis’ jail holds mental health, education, substance abuse and music programs. These programs are funded through telephone revenue “commissions” paid to Cocchi by ICSolutions ...

$225,000 Windfall in Lehigh County, Pa. But Officials Don’t Cut Jail Phone Costs

Article • November 1, 2020 • from PLN November, 2020

Filed under: COVID-19, Telephone Rates

$225,000 Windfall in Lehigh County, Pa. But Officials Don’t Cut Jail Phone Costs by David Reutter by David M. Reutter Renegotiation of its jail telephone contract netted Pennsylvania’s ...

San Francisco Eliminates Fees on Jail Phone Calls

Article • September 1, 2020 • from PLN September, 2020

Filed under: Commissary, Telephone Rates

’s unanimous July 14, 2020 vote to end jail telephone call and commissary fees. Before this, California law authorized counties to charge prisoners for telephone calls and jail commissary items ...

Dallas County, Texas Jails Finally Enter the 21st Century on Phone Rates

Article • September 1, 2020 • from PLN September, 2020

Filed under: Telephone Rates

Dallas County, Texas Jails Finally Enter the 21st Century on Phone Rates by Edward Lyon by Ed Lyon Until February 18, 2020, it cost pre- and post-trial detainees in the Dallas County, Texas jails .24¢ per minute to speak to their families on the phone. Urged by criminal justice reform …

Families Accuse Arkansas Prison of Poor Communication on COVID-19 Prisoners

Article • August 1, 2020 • from PLN August, 2020

Filed under: Medical Records, COVID-19, Telephone Access

Families Accuse Arkansas Prison of Poor Communication on COVID-19 Prisoners by Kevin Bliss by Kevin Bliss Arkansas’ Cummins Unit prison facility had 11 confirmed deaths due to coronavirus as of June 9, 2020. Families were concerned over a lack of communication and delayed notification from the Arkansas Department of Corrections …

Quarantine Fatigue vs. Escalating Prison Lockdowns (During COVID-19 & Black Lives Matter Protests)

Article • July 30, 2020

Filed under: Telephone Rates, Fathers in Prison, Children of Prisoners

Quarantine Fatigue vs. Escalating Prison Lockdowns (During COVID-19 & Black Lives Matter Protests) by Ava Martoma KidsMates, Inc. Blog Post By Ava Martoma, Age 13 Like much of America, I’m feeling quarantine fatigue. On the upside, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on … well, everything. Lately, George …

COVID-19 Pandemic Leads to Unrest in Prisons Around the Globe

Article • July 1, 2020 • from PLN July, 2020

Filed under: COVID-19, Telephone Access, Visiting

COVID-19 Pandemic Leads to Unrest in Prisons Around the Globe by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke The COVID-19 pandemic, or rather government officials’ inept reaction to the pandemic, has led to unrest in prisons around the world—especially in South America and the Middle East. This has resulted in the escape …

California Court of Appeal Upholds Dismissal of Challenge to Excessive Jail Phone Rates as Unconstitutional Tax

Article • July 1, 2020 • from PLN July, 2020

Filed under: Telephone Rates

of appeal noted that “the general rule is that a person may not sue to recover excess taxes paid by someone else. Plaintiffs may have paid exorbitant charges to the telephone provider, but they did ...

Company Hawking Prison Phone Monitoring Technology as Way to Discover Coronavirus Infections

Article • June 1, 2020 • from PLN June, 2020

Filed under: COVID-19, Telephone Monitoring

Company Hawking Prison Phone Monitoring Technology as Way to Discover Coronavirus Infections by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke A Los Angeles-based company has been selling to jails and prison systems phone-monitoring technology that searches for keywords, touting it as a way to discover COVID-19 infections early. LEO Technologies developed the …

Prison Officials Limit Prisoner Communications During COVID-19 Crisis

Article • June 1, 2020 • from PLN June, 2020

Filed under: Telephone Access, Video Visitation

access to telephones and emails, solely to mitigate the spread of the virus from multiple people touching keyboards and handsets,” a move strongly condemned by the American Civil Liberties Union ...

The Ongoing Push to End Outrageous Prison Phone Charges

Article • April 1, 2020 • from PLN April, 2020

Filed under: Telephone Rates, State Legislation

The Ongoing Push to End Outrageous Prison Phone Charges by Anthony Accurso by Anthony W. Accurso Groups in several states are drawing increased attention to the high cost of jail and prison phone rates, and pushing to reduce or eliminate such charges. HRDC, the publisher of PLN, has been a …

Long-running Maricopa County, Arizona Jail Lawsuit Ends

Article • March 4, 2020 • from PLN March, 2020

Filed under: Medical, Overcrowding, Telephones, Mental Health

. Hill -- now Graves v. Penzone, the name of the county’s current sheriff -- began. Initially the case involved access to attorneys through telephone availability and overcrowded conditions ...

Oregon Lawmakers Prohibit Prison and Jail Telephone Kickbacks

Article • March 3, 2020 • from PLN March, 2020

Filed under: Telephones, Telephone Rates

Oregon Lawmakers Prohibit Prison and Jail Telephone Kickbacks by Mark Wilson by Mark Wilson This isn’t just an issue of economics,” said Oregon Senator Sara Gelser, the chief ...

Securus Technologies Rebrands as Aventiv

Article • January 9, 2020 • from PLN January, 2020

Filed under: Telephones, Telephone Rates

Securus Technologies Rebrands as Aventiv by Kevin Bliss by Kevin Bliss On October 8, 2019, a corporate reorganization listed Aventiv Technologies as the parent company of Securus Technologies, Inc., JPay and AllPaid (formerly known as GovPayNet). Securus has a long history of providing prison and jail phone services, and price …

Lawsuit Proceeds Over Conditions at Orange County, California Jail

Article • December 9, 2019 • from PLN December, 2019

Filed under: Telephones, Attorney Calls, Telephone Monitoring

Barnes was granted class-action status in September 2019 to include all detainees at the Orange County Jail (OCJ) whose telephone conversations with their attorneys were illegally recorded by GTL, the jail ...

Alaska Supreme Court Upholds Prisoner Visitation Denial

Article • November 25, 2019

Filed under: Misconduct/Corruption, Telephones

” and “displaying wedding rings within a secure area of the facility,” along with recordings of over 2,000 telephone calls between them within a two-year period, some involving sexual ...

New York: Prisoners Have No Expectation to Privacy During Jail Phone Calls

Article • November 5, 2019 • from PLN November, 2019

Filed under: Telephones, Telephone Monitoring

on the calls since he was a pretrial detainee and had not been convicted of a crime. The trial court, after hearing from both sides, allowed the telephonic evidence to be introduced. The court found that Diaz ...

Oregon Prisoner’s Use of Another Prisoner’s Phone PIN Constitutes Identity Theft

Article • November 5, 2019 • from PLN November, 2019

Filed under: Telephones, Cell Phone Access

of the crime of identity theft because he used the personal identification numbers (PINs) of two other prisoners to access a jail telephone. Michael Steven Connolly was confined at the Multnomah County Detention ...

San Francisco to Cut Costs for Jail Phone Calls, Commissary Sales

Article • October 4, 2019 • from PLN October, 2019

Filed under: Telephones, Telephone Access, Telephone Rates

Justice Project’s director, Anne Stuhl, are also firmly on board with Breed’s vision to ease the financial costs imposed on prisoners and their families. Currently a telephone call costs $0.14 ...

Illinois Prison Phone Rates are Lowest Following Grassroots Activism

Article • August 6, 2019 • from PLN August, 2019

Filed under: Organizing, Lobbying, Protests, Telephones, Telephone Access, Telephone Rates

;Prison telecom companies buy telephone time for fractions of a penny per minute and can make massive profits by allowing calls for a penny a minute, in part because they gouge family members with ancillary ...