ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, October 21, 1996 TAG: 9610210087
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
Tax on inmate phone calls called unfair
RICHMOND - Money collected from recipients of inmates' phone calls and funneled to the state amounts to an unfair tax that gouges some of Virginia's poorest families, a prison reform group said.
Virginia CURE - Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants - will ask the General Assembly to end what it called a 50 percent ``kickback'' paid the state by MCI for inmate phone calls.
The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission says the arrangement netted the state $7.5million last year. CURE says it will be $10million this year. The money goes to the state's general fund.
CURE said a survey has shown that the average annual income of a family of four of a Virginia inmate is less than $10,000.
``Is it right to tax this population $10million a year for the privilege of talking to someone in prison? We're trying to deal with an economic hardship,'' said Dow Chamberlain, a CURE member and executive director of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy.
Department of Corrections spokesman David Botkins said controls are needed on inmate calls to prevent fraud and abuse.
Under the arrangement, all inmate calls must be made collect through an operator. The recipient is billed at operator-assisted rates and pays a $3 surcharge for each call, which is limited to 15 minutes.
CURE members think the call recipients pay at least twice what a normal call would be because the state is paid 50 percent of the billed cost.
The state's commission had been 28 percent, but it was increased to 50 percent last year.
Because the calls are limited to 15 minutes, recipients sometimes have to accept several calls in a row, paying the $3 surcharge each time.
-Associated Press
Open house set at Monticello dig
CHARLOTTESVILLE - Archaeologists at Monticello are excavating the site of a log cabin that was inhabited by Elizabeth Hemings, a slave whose daughter was reputed to be Thomas Jefferson's mistress.
Monticello is holding a free open house from 1 to 4 p.m. daily through Friday to share its archaeological research.
``I think it's important that Monticello paint a fuller and more accurate portrait of what life was really like here in the 18th century,'' said Fraser Neiman, Monticello's director of archaeology. ``We currently have an edited version.''
Elizabeth ``Betty'' Hemings died at Monticello in 1807 at the age of 72. Most historians believe she bore several children to John Wayles, the father of Jefferson's wife, Martha.
But historians disagree on whether Sally Hemings became Thomas Jefferson's mistress after his wife died. The Hemings family claims Jefferson fathered four children by Sally Hemings.
- Associated Press
Museum will honor Civil War soldiers
DINWIDDIE - A family plans to build a museum that will tell the story of the average soldier's life during the Civil War.
Plans for the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier were detailed Saturday at a ground-breaking ceremony at the Pamplin Park Civil War Site in Dinwiddie County.
The museum is scheduled to open in the 173-acre park on Memorial Day in 1999. The museum and other park attractions will give visitors a ``composite historical experience of the Civil War,'' said Robert Pamplin Jr.
The Pamplin Foundation, the family's philanthropic arm, owns and administers the park. The park is the site of the battle where Gen. Ulysses S. Grant broke Gen. Robert E. Lee's defensive lines April 2, 1865, forcing Lee's retreat to Appomattox.
- Associated Press
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