An outrage we all need to know about

Ripping off the innocent to feed the "justice" system

As many times as I've written about the many outrages of our criminal justice system, I thought that running across a new injustice would tend to be something of a yawner. In fact, when a friend alerted me to this subject, I was skeptical. Even my libertarian expect-the-worst-of-government attitude couldn't believe what I was coming to understand. What I was hearing was exploitation of completely innocent people, hidden back-door taxation, unapproved and unbudgeted government funding, kickbacks, and the worst sort of government-corporation conspired corruption.

I quickly found, with a little research, that this outrage is not new, and it's widespread... in at least 40 states and perhaps much more. Here's the way the scheme works:

A friend or relative of yours is arrested... makes no difference what the charge. Think DWI, for example... 7,500 people were arrested last year in my county for DWI. Or, think traffic accident, the cop smells marijuana, does a search, and finds a joint. Your friend or relative gets one free phone call. If they're lucky, they reach someone useful. If not, too bad. They need to get in touch with people "on the outside".

Take a minute here and think about how many people would need to know that you're in jail. You've just been taken out of your schedule... virtually out of existence. Who is depending on you? Who expects to see you, or to be able to contact you? What needs to be done that you now can't do? Got pets at home? Kids with a baby-sitter? You're thinking that you'll have to call a number of people.

You'll find that you can only make collect calls to friends or family members. Then, you'll be shocked to find that the people you want to phone have to have an "account" and be pre-approved to receive, and pay for, your calls. Locally, setting up the account costs $50. That may eliminate some friends, and even some relatives. If the people you want to call choose to go through the aggravation and cost of getting an account, they will later find out that they're being charged an arm and a leg for the calls... roughly 6 times what we normally pay. You'll also discover that your calls are monitored, taped, interrupted with messages (at their expense), or disconnected (with an extra charge for reconnection). When they get their bill, it is likely to be inaccurate, with overcharges, double-billed, or simply fraudulent. Their attempts to contact the provider will be avoided, time-consuming, and fruitless. All this grief is being borne, not by the person in jail, but by people who care enough about them to try to help.

But (and this can only happen in a governmental monopoly situation such as this) you have no alternative. You shut up and suffer, or just abandon someone you care about.

And why, you may wonder, would our own governments allow such travesties to continue? The answer is... because they are the SOURCE of this conspiracy. They cut deals with the phone service providers that returns up to 60% of the revenue the scam generates. The providers of the phone services and the government split the profits extracted from innocent people.

Here's a comment from Congressman Bobby Rush, 1st District, Illinois

State prison systems typically use telephone setups that permit only collect calls, made through providers that keep a monopoly on prison telephone service by paying the states a ''commission'' -- essentially a legal kickback. The kickback does not materialize out of thin air. The people who receive the phone calls often pay as much as six times the going rate. Not surprisingly, the costs discourage inmates from keeping in touch with spouses and children who may live hundreds of miles away and find it difficult or impossible to visit.

Or this, from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has filed three lawsuits challenging such corruption in New York:

In more than forty states, prison systems rely on monopolistic telephone contracts to reap huge profits at the expense of families and friend trying to remain in contact with their loved ones in prison. In some cases, these people are charged as much as 60% above market rates for collect calls, in a practice that violates federal and state anti-trust laws. Statistically, it can be demonstrated that the majority of prisoners' families are poor, and also that prisoners who maintain close relations with friends and relatives on the outside are less likely to commit further crimes.

The New York State Department of Correctional Service has made $175 million off this backdoor tax on prison families since the contract started in 1996. Nevada got an estimated $2.9 million last year from calls made by 10,000 inmates. New York, with 67,000 inmates, got $20 million. I found information from a supplier of software for such telephone systems, and it gives us an idea how widespread the prison telephone scam is:

Digital ComBridge Has Prison Phone Systems All Locked Up
Introduced in 1997, the system is now running in over 1600 correctional facilities with over 40,000 telephone lines, making T-NETIX the leading supplier of telephony security and monitoring systems to the correctional services sector. In fact, our company holds a 30 percent market share.

Expanding from 30%, that calculates out to 5,333 correctional facilities with over 133,000 phone lines. By any standards, that is major corruption. What I've read makes it appear that Verizon/MCI is a major player in this scam, but the correctional departments are active participants in this awful scheme. As I pointed out in Those big, bad corporations, the power that is being misused resides in the government.

What effect do you suppose being able to profit from the families of prisoners has on the correctional system? Does it give them an incentive to put more people into detention? Does it give them an incentive to keep them there longer? As is true in other areas of the criminal justice system, this scheme gives agencies a source of income they don't have to ask legislatures to approve... a source that can be kept under the radar. As is also true in other areas of government, the scheme works best because it is perpetrated against people who are too frightened or poor to complain.

Government has a monopoly on force, and they can grant a monopoly on the telephone service. They can arrest and detain whomever they choose. With complete control, and perverse incentives, abuse is not just likely, it's guaranteed. Like all government abuse, it will continue until enough citizens and organizations learn about it, and spend their own time and money to try to stop it... while the abusers fight back using our own tax money.

Government of the people, by the people, and for the people? Not even close... we have government on the backs of the people.

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