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Jail's collect-call policy debated

Monday, October 07, 2002

By Jeffrey Cohan, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

It is widely believed that incarcerated criminals stand a better chance of turning their lives around if they can maintain contact with their loved ones on the outside.

But Ellen Bosetti couldn't talk on the phone with her boyfriend this summer while he was an inmate in the Allegheny County Jail.

The jail still only offers inmates one option for phoning their attorneys, friends and families: collect calls. Many families cannot or can barely afford collect calls, which are far more expensive than direct calls. And many others, like the 49-year-old Bosetti, cannot accept collect calls at all because they rely exclusively on cell phones.

Bosetti, a Coraopolis resident, wants the county to follow the lead of the federal prison system, which has established personal phone accounts that allow inmates to dial their loved ones directly -- and less expensively. The state of Pennsylvania is preparing to set up such accounts, too.

"I don't see any reason why that wouldn't work here," Bosetti said. "They could be humane about this."

For people with traditional land-line phones, the cost of collect calls from inmates can strain family finances.

Once a new rate increase takes effect Oct. 19, a 15-minute collect call from an inmate to a loved one in the Hill District will cost $2.20. An inmate's call to McKeesport will cost $5.

Point Breeze resident Nate Smith Jr. said his parents were billed for more than $100 in collect calls when he was jailed for a week last year.

"I was one of the fortunate ones," Smith said. "A lot of families cannot afford collect calls."

At least two factors drive up the cost of collect calls from the jail.

Phones at the jail are equipped with expensive recording gear and other security enhancements. And the county government collects a 40 percent commission on each call. The phone companies collect the fees and remit the commission to the county.

The county expects to collect about $1.2 million in commissions from collect calls placed at the jail and Shuman Juvenile Detention Center this year.

While a percentage of the sales at the jail's commissary goes into a fund for inmate services, the phone commissions end up in the county's general operating budget.

Such commissions, common throughout the country, have been criticized as an unfair tax on inmates' families, many of whom are impoverished.

"They're gouging these poor people," said Allegheny County Jail Warden Calvin Lightfoot, who recommends reducing the commissions and redirecting the proceeds to the jail's Inmate Welfare Fund.

The costs of the calls have been reduced somewhat in recent years.

Rates were higher from 1995 to 2000, when Allegheny Telephone had the exclusive contract for the jail's 252 inmate phones. During that period, the county charged a 50 percent commission. Only last week, the county reached a tentative settlement with Allegheny Telephone over unpaid commissions.

In April 2000, the county switched to Bell Atlantic, which is now Verizon, and reduced its commission to 40 percent.

The Verizon deal expires in April, but the county has the option to renew it for two additional years.

Sam Wilson, the county's telecommunications manager, said no decision has been made yet on whether to renew the contract. But the upcoming expiration will give the county a chance to consider establishing personal phone accounts as an alternative to collect calls.

"I'm sure we'll be looking at all the options available," Wilson said.

In the federal prison system, inmates put money from their families or money from their work into an individual account that is tapped to pay for their direct calls, using a personal identification number.

The state of Pennsylvania, which has only allowed collect calls, is making arrangements to set up phone accounts in its prisons, too.

Such accounts are gaining in popularity across the country.

"We know that prisoners with a strong support system are likely to do better upon their release," said Kay Perry, a Kalamazoo, Mich., woman who leads a national campaign organized to reduce the cost on inmate phone calls.

University of Cincinnati Professor Edward Latessa, a nationally recognized expert in criminal justice, said he has never seen a study correlating phone calls with reductions in recidivism. But he said there are reasons to facilitate affordable inmate calls.

"It's kind of a humane issue," Latessa said.

Bosetti would agree.

"They're making us guys on the outside suffer, too," she said.