Pubdate: Tuesday, June 15, 1999 Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA) Copyright: 1999 San Francisco Chronicle Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/ Forum: http://www.sfgate.com/conferences/ Page: A 24 (Editorial) A CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PRISON PHONE SCAM ONE OF THE MAIN lifelines to family for California's 161,000 convicts locked away in 33 far-flung prisons is the collect telephone call. Phone calls to the outside world are an important privilege that inmate advocates insist is vital to rehabilitating prisoners and keeping families together. So it was disturbing to learn that the state Department of General Services' contracts with phone carriers -- MCI and GTE -- gouge inmates and provide a handsome commission to the state's general fund from each call. Chronicle staff writer Deborah Solomon reports General Services, which bids state contracts, picks phone companies that give the largest kickbacks to state coffers, rather than the lowest rates for inmates. MCI pays the state 44 cents on the dollar, GTE pays 33 cents. Last year, the state received $16 million from inmate phone calls. Commissions are expected to exceed $20 million next year as the prison population grows and phone rates increase. Those are unseemly profits made at the expense of convicts and their families, who are often in financial distress. Currently the 2,400 prison phones -- some 32 percent of the state's pay phones -- yield 75 percent of the state's pay phone revenues. It doesn't take an accountant to see the inequity: a 15-minute collect phone call from San Quentin Prison to Oakland costs about $5, compared to $2.55 just outside the walls. Solomon writes of the plight of an Oakland single mother of two who went broke after amassing $400 monthly phone bills from the father of her children locked up in San Quentin. The woman eventually limited the calls to one a week, but Solomon notes some families are unable to afford the high phone rates, and have lost contact with inmate relatives altogether. Advocates warn that inmates who do not maintain outside connections are far likelier to return to crime when they are released from prison. California is due to rebid its pay-phone contracts next month. When it does, the state should consider not just commissions, but the practical rehabilitative powers of phone calls and family contacts. The state should make it clear to phone companies that such obscene profits at the expense of inmates and their families are unfair, unacceptable and bad public policy. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake