THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 22, 1996 TAG: 9610220005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 44 lines
A prisoners' rights group is urging the General Assembly to halt the practice of charging an extra $3 fee on all inmate phone calls.
Since prisoners must make collect calls only, the surcharge is levied against the person on the other end of the line - usually relatives who can ill-afford the extra fee.
Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants, CURE, claims that the average annual income of the family of a Virginia inmate is only about $10,000. Collect calls are already billed at a premium rate, and CURE claims this added fee for a 15-minute conversation works an extra hardship on families.
We agree. A critical ingredient of rehabilitation is strong family ties. Inmates are already physically cut off from their loved ones. By making phone calls prohibitively expensive, the state increases the odds that these convicts could find themselves estranged from their best support systems when they are released from prison.
The Richmond-Times Dispatch reported Sunday that the state collected $7.5 million last year from this inmate-phone-call surcharge. The newspaper estimates that the Virginia general fund will collect $10 million this year.
Some prison reformers oppose the entire concept of operator-assisted collect calls from inmates and the state monitoring of inmate conversations. We do not. By forcing them to make collect calls, imprisoned lawbreakers are discouraged from making harassing or abusive calls to the victims of their crimes or to witnesses who testified against them in court.
In addition, the state must have the ability to monitor inmate phone calls to ensure that convicts are not conducting or directing illegal activities by phone.
But it is in the best interest of society to encourage close ties between inmates and their law-abiding kin. Letters and phone calls are often the best way of keeping in touch when inmates are imprisoned far from home.
Eventually most prisoners are released from prison. Those who have been supported by their families during their incarceration have the best chance to adjust to life on the outside and avoid returning to crime.
Public safety would be better served by lowering or eliminating the extra collect-call fee. by CNB