Maine State Telephone Campaign

[Forevermah]

Prisons' fees take toll on poor families
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By Bill Nemitz Portland Press Herald Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Marie Libby knew when her son moved into the Maine State Prison for a 40-year murder sentence that keeping in touch would not be easy.
But the $15 to $20 she spends to talk with him by phone each Sunday is more than just a financial hardship. As far as Libby is concerned, it's state-sponsored larceny.
"I don't understand why (the Maine Department of Corrections) gets away with it," said Libby, who lives in Portland on not much money. "Let's face it, the majority of prisoners up there don't have rich relatives. So the state is making money off poor people."
She's right. And the Department of Corrections admits it.
Here's how it works.
Say an inmate makes a collect call (the only kind allowed from Maine's eight correctional facilities) to his family for 30 minutes. The charge, at $1.80 for the first minute and 25 cents for each minute thereafter, will be a whopping $9.05. (The same call out of state costs $23.60.)
Some of that money goes to Public Communication Services, which provides telephone service for the 2,080 adults and 185 juveniles in state custody.
But 41 cents out of every dollar -- $3.71 from that $9.05 call -- goes straight to the DOC.
"They call it a 'commission,'" said Bill Flynn, president of the state prison's Long Timers Group. "But it's a kickback."
Labels aside, it's hardly small change. The corrections department tele-pockets $1 million a year from inmates' families and friends -- many of whom already have trouble making ends meet.
People like Marie Libby, who often gets "the horrors" when she tries to shoehorn her $50-to-$75 prison phone bill into her monthly budget.
"It's totally unfair," said Libby. But because we're talking about prisoners here, she added, "nobody feels sorry for you."
So why does the state do it?
"I'm not saying I can justify or rationalize it -- other than it's been the practice for decades," said department spokeswoman Denise Lord.
Lord said the state's telephone take goes to the Inmate Benefit Fund to pay for things that might otherwise go unfunded. Flynn and other prisoners counter that the fund often gets raided for bare essentials like "paint and flooring supplies."
Lord also noted that a new telephone system, scheduled for rollout this summer, will reduce the cost of shorter calls (but not longer ones). At the same time, she said, the department's annual "commission" will drop to 33 percent, $600,000.
Here's a better idea. This morning, the Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee will hear a bill to take the entire prison telephone system and place it in the not-so-greedy hands of the Public Utilities Commission.
Freda Plumley, a member of the Augusta Church of Christ, would welcome that. For the past 15 years, she's reached out and touched a state prison inmate who joined her church and often needs someone to talk to.
"One month was $140," she said Tuesday, looking over her recent bills. "Another was $110, and here's one for $95 "
Plumley's faith tells her to pay, month after expensive month, because prisoners need all the "connections" they can get with the outside world.
But the church lady's common sense tells her this is nothing more than a shakedown.
"It's an unfair tax on a group of people who are quite vulnerable," Plumley said. "And that's just wrong."


http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/nemitz/070131nemitz.html

[Forevermah]

Families of inmates fight for new phone rules

Paula Gibbs

A group of people whose family members are incarcerated and two groups of inmates within the Maine State Prison are on a mission to change the way the state's Department of Corrections (DOC) handles inmates' phone calls.

Two of those people, one a Wiscasset resident named Kelly, and Barbara, of Cape Elizabeth, will testify in Augusta next week that it is not fair that the state makes 41 cents on every $1 worth of calls inmates make. The two are hoping others will testify before the legislature's Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety at a hearing on proposed legislation that would give the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) oversight of DOC's inmate phone system and rates. The hearing will be held at the State House in Augusta on Wednesday, January 31, at 9 a.m. in room 436.

Kelly's husband and Barbara's fiancé are both at the Maine State Prison in Warren, where two groups of inmates, a prison branch of the NAACP, and the Long Timers Group, came together last year to try to change the current phone situation. The group of families met with representatives of the DOC and the Governor's Office last fall, to discuss some changes. They say they were told to wait a year to see if DOC's new system would work.

Inmates are not allowed to receive phone calls, but they can make collect calls. While the two women and others in their small support group agree that family members should pay for the calls from the inmates, they say the rates are disproportionately high, compared to long distance rates other Maine citizens pay. In-state rates from the Maine State Prison are $1.80 to connect, and 25 cents per minute.

An inmate talking to his wife or children once a day for a half hour means a phone bill of about $223 per month currently and $250 per month under DOC's new system. This compares to the average long distance phone rate of 3.5 cents a minute that other citizens pay, which would cost $32 per month. The women say they were told by Denise Lord, DOC's Associate Commissioner that the phone calls generate $600,000 to $1.2 million in any given year.

Although the DOC is instituting a new phone system, eliminating the connection fee with a flat rate of 30 cents a minute, the two women say friends and family members of prisoners will still be paying more per call after 31 minutes. The new system calls for the DOC to set up a website where family members can deposit money to pay for phone calls. Each time money is deposited, the family member or friend will be charged a fee

In a position paper outlining their concerns, members of the State Prison's NAACP and Long Timers Group say the DOC's "awarding of the phone contract for prisoner calls is often based on the highest percent commission offered to the prison administration. Therefore, the commission acts as an incentive for the DOC to contract the highest rates possible."

"The commission on prisoner telephones is an unconstitutional tax placed only on those citizens unfortunate enough to have a family member or loved one in prison," the groups say. They also question whether the money generated from the phone calls which is supposed to go into the Inmate Benefit Fund, actually benefits prisoners; they say that in 2005, over $140,000 was spent on furniture and equipment, $264,000 on repairs and renovations, and $139,000 on miscellaneous.

"We already pay our taxes. We should not be taxed again to pay for prison expenditures," Barbara says.

"A lot of prisoner's families are poor, and simply cannot accept collect calls because they cost too much," Kelly says. The excessive rates weaken the ties between prisoners and their families, she says, in a world where having a family to return to after they get out is critically important.

"Ninety-seven percent of the people in Maine's prison system will walk out the door. Many will walk out of there with no money, and no place to go unless they've maintained a relationship with someone on the outside. The likelihood of re-offending is greatly reduced if they have some type of family support upon release," Barbara says.

In addition to oversight by PUC, the group wants the legislature to prohibit DOC from imposing rates of $0.30 per minute, rates 300 percent to 600 percent higher than the average cost of calls in Maine, and to end the practice of adding a commission to inmate calls, which acts as an unconstitutional tax on many of the poorest citizens in Maine.

"Maintaining meaningful contact between prisoners, family members, and other loved ones is ESSENTIAL for successful reentry and the corresponding reduction of recidivism, thus benefiting the State of Maine" Under the group's proposal, oversight would be handled by the PUC; local, intra-state, interstate, and international calls would be allowed; the first minute of fees would be no more than 25 cents for in state calls and 75 cents for out-of-state calls; international calls would be billed at no more than the average rate Maine citizens pay, through a debit account; commissions to the DOC would end; any profits generated from the inmate phones will go toward covering costs associated with maintaining the phone system, any remaining funds will go into the Inmate Benefit Fund; and debit account calling and collect calling will be allowed."

"The high price we have to pay for these phone calls is not fair," Kelly says. "We did nothing wrong - and yet if feels like I am being punished."

Those who cannot attend next week's hearing who would like to give their support to the proposed bill, LD 91, sponsored by Sen. Ethan Strimling of Portland can send an e-mail to FairratesforME@yahoo.com, or mail a letter to Fair Rates For Me, PO Box 273, Edgecomb, ME 04556