Nationwide PLN Survey Examines Prison Phone Contracts, Kickbacks
Publication year:
2013
| Cataloged on:
Feb. 11, 2013
ANNOTATION: The exceeding high rates for phone calls charged to prisoners and their families are examined. Sections comprising this report are: how phone rates are regulated; the prison phone bidding process; the history behind kickback commissions; the arbitrary nature of prison phone rates; whether all prison phone companies are the same; whether all states are the same; the case of Florida, a state in flux; what happens without kickbacks; prison phone rates on the federal level; legal challenges mostly unsuccessful; regulation by state agencies; the purpose of prison phone services; and prison phone contracts as socially regressive policy. Included is a table showing prison phone contract data/kickbacks/ and daytime collect call rates per state. “An exhaustive analysis of prison phone contracts nationwide has revealed that with only limited exceptions, telephone service providers offer lucrative kickbacks (politely termed “commissions”) to state contracting agencies – amounting on average to 42% of gross revenues from prisoners’ phone calls – in order to obtain exclusive, monopolistic contracts for prison phone services” (p.1).
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