Take Action to Stop Prison Phone Gouging

Cell phones and prisoners keep popping up in the news these days. Corrections officials paint cell phones as a crisis, saying prisoners are using them to orchestrate crimes, to smuggle drugs and weapons into prison and -- gasp! -- to update Facebook profiles.

The real reason prisoners want cell phones, however, is to talk to their families. A former Florida prisoner recently told the Broward New Times that phones are being used far more often to keep in touch with loved ones than to commit crimes. "The vast majority were used by inmates desperate to stay in touch with, and hold on to, their wives and children," the long-serving prisoner, who didn't give his name, told a reporter.

What's driving prisoners to use cell phones rather than prison phones? The cost. As you may know, states and phone companies conspire to pull hefty profits from poor families and prisoners who just want to stay in touch. At last count, only six states pass up commissions from phone companies. As the ACLU pointed out in a blog post this summer, the phone companies and corrections departments win in these deals, while everyone else loses. "Prisoners and their families suffer financial hardship or fall out of touch, and when sentences expire, prisons release a more alienated and less rehabilitated group of prisoners into society."

Scott Henson recently suggested at Grits for Breakfast that prisons allow restricted, monitored access to smartphones, rather than trying -- and failing -- to restrict them. "One of the key indicators regarding successful reentry is whether the offender retained ties with friends and family while on the inside who can help them succeed
when they get out," Henson said an in intereview. "Facilitating communication with those people while inside reduces recidivism and therefore future crime."

There is some movement in the right direction on prison phone costs. Congress passed a law in 2010 mostly focused on making cell phones illegal for prisoners. But at least someone made the connection between contact with loved ones and rehabilitation, so the law also mandates the Government Accountability Office study phone rates for prisoners. Baby steps.

And Change.org member Michael Hamden has posted a petition calling the Federal Communications Commission to investigate and regulate prison phone charges in order to protect incarcerated men and women from price gouging. Add your name here. And find the rates in your state here. You can always call your state's corrections department to urge them to stop gouging prisoners and their families.

(Hat tips: William Newmiller, Prison Law Blog)

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Photo Credit: Robert.Montalvo