Why are collect calls from prison so much more expensive than calls made outside?

[Little_Nemo]

The telephone and vending services are completely autonomous from the prison administration. The equipment is installed, owned, operated, and serviced by the outside company.

[wring]

*Originally posted by Little Nemo *
**The telephone and vending services are completely autonomous from the prison administration. The equipment is installed, owned, operated, and serviced by the outside company. **

sure, but just as in the outside, the property owner (where it’s placed) often is paid some cut in order to have the item on the property. (note, I think the gum ball machines for charity do not pay a cut, but I’ve been offered the ‘opportunity’ to have vending machines on my premises and part of the deal was that I’d get a small cut. The pay phone at the correction center definately paid a cut to our agency)

[tomndebb]

Little Nemo, your statement that prompted my most recent question was

Telephone service and vending machine service is bid out to private corporations.

I know of no scenario in which a bid does not result in the exchange of money. So I was curious whether the bid was for the service company to pay for the privilege or the corrections department was to pay for the service.

Again, I am sure that the money exchanged is probably less than a rounding error on the annual budget report of either group, but I was curious as to which direction the money was going.

[PatrickM]

*Originally posted by Little Nemo *

**In New York, the Department of Corrections collects five percent of the telephone fee. We do this as the site owner and stores which have pay telephones collect a similar fee. The money collected this way is put into the inmate recreation fund. So essentially, the deprtment is making no money off of phone calls.
**

I’m sorry but I don’t buy the “we’re not making any money” argument. The State Department of Corrections IS receiving money off of the high phone rates, even if it uses the money for legitimate prison purposes such as the inmate recreation fund. That’s money that it doesn’t have to get from the legislature, meaning the taxpayers at large. Instead, it collects money to replace general tax revenue from the family and friends of criminals, knowing full well that the family and friends of criminals, even though innocent themselves, have no pull in the legislature.

[Askia]

PatrickM: So collect calls made from the local jail could be used for an ‘inmate recreations fund’ for the really hardened criminals in the state prison?

If that’s accurate, those hardly seem like legitimate expenses to ME.

[PatrickM]

*Originally posted by Askia K. Hale *
**PatrickM: So collect calls made from the local jail could be used for an ‘inmate recreations fund’ for the really hardened criminals in the state prison?

If that’s accurate, those hardly seem like legitimate expenses to ME.

**

Askia, maybe I’m dense, but I don’t get your point.

I don’t think that its right that an inmate’s family and friends have to pay much higher than normal phone bills just because they accept a call from an inmate, and just because that money may go into the fund for inmate recreation. What does whether the criminal is in the state pen orin the local county jail have to do with it? IMHO, taking money from the inmate’s family and friends under such circumstances is just as inappropriate either way.