news
44 cents per minute: Arkansas keeps prison calls among highest in the nation
The Arkansas Board of Corrections voted unanimously and without discussion on Nov. 21 to maintain the current fee of 44 cents per minute that families and others must pay to receive collect phone calls from inmates. After the meeting, a group representing inmates’ families complained that the board had not acknowledged or discussed their pleas for a cheaper alternative. A company whose bid had been rejected also protested the manner by which the board had reached its decision, prompting other state officials to place a temporary block on the board’s action.
$4 million for prisons
At issue is how much money the state of Arkansas will take from the fees that families, friends and attorneys pay to receive phone calls from inmates. Calls to inmates are not allowed. Inmates may only place collect calls, for a maximum of 15 minutes per call, to persons on an approved list. The cost for one 15-minute call is $6.60, or 44 cents per minute. Under the state’s current contract, which is with MCI, the phone company makes 22.5 cents per minute, and the remaining 22.4 cents goes to the state. Rates are established by contract between the phone company and the state and are not regulated. Last year, Arkansas’s inmate phone system generated roughly $2 million for prison operations.
Group calls fee unfair ‘tax’
According to the Rick Hart, chairman of board, and Dina Tyler, spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Correction, two documents relating to the phone contract were provided to board members at the November meeting. One was a letter from Effie Bowers, founder of Arkansas CURE (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants), who asked that the board consider allowing inmates to use debit cards. She noted that 13 states and the federal prison system now allow use of debit cards, which Bowers said eases the strain on families. Bowers argued in her letter that it was “not fair to ‘tax’ only the families and friends of prisoners” to raise extra money for prison operations. Only Kansas, New Jersey and Arizona currently have higher rates than Arkansas.
No record of discussion
The other document provided to members at the meeting was a one-page “memo” from a committee that had been formed to evaluate bids for the telephone system. In that memo, the committee recommended that the board approve a new contract with Global Tel-Link. Freedom of Information requests to both the chairman of the board and the prison department produced no records of any meetings of the full board where the new phone contract was discussed. According to the documents provided, the board voted on the new contract without ever having discussed either the issues raised by CURE, other companies’ bids or its committee’s one-sentence recommendation.
With its vote, the board agreed to switch the prison system’s inmate phone contract from MCI, which pays the state a rebate of 51 percent per call, to Global-Tel Link Corp., which offered to increase the state’s take on calls to 55 percent. Prison officials said after the meeting that the rate of 44 cents per minute that recipients pay for inmate calls will not change under the new contract, but that the income to the state would increase from 22 to 24 cents per minute.
LA company protests
Bowers and other inmate advocates expressed disappointment to reporters after the meeting. And the next day, one of the bidding companies, Public Communications Services Corp., of Los Angeles, filed a protest with Arkansas officials, challenging the board’s selection process. The California company pointed out that MCI had merged with Verizon last year and that, a week prior to the board’s vote, Global Tel-Link had announced it was purchasing Verizon’s corrections phone division. Tyler said the committee that recommended the new contract to the board was not aware of Global Tel-Link’s plan to purchase Verizon/MCI. In response to the company’s protest, officials at Arkansas’s Office of State Procurement placed a temporary block on the new contract. Representatives of CURE welcomed the delay, saying they hoped that the burden the inmate phone places on families would also “get the attention it deserves.”
