New York Campaign for Telephone Justice Facts
Current Situation
On January 8, 2007, New York's Governor Eliot Spitzer eliminated the state's commission from its prison telephone contract and, in doing so, reduced the collect call rates from DOCS prisons by 57.5%.
The current rate to receive a collect call from a New York DOCS prision is $1.28 connection fee and 6.8¢ per minute.
In June 2007, the New York State Assembly and Senate passed the Family Connections bill, which makes it state law that the prison telephone contract cannot include a kickback to the state and requires that the bidding process prioritize the lowest cost to the consumer. Read the text of the Family Connections bill.
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New York Prison Telephone Service 1996 - 2007
From 1996 - 2007, people who received collect calls from their loved ones incarcerated in a New York State prison were charged $3 to initiate the call and 16¢ per minute.
During this time, Verizon/MCI advertised rates as low as $5 per month and 5¢ per minute for phone service to the general public.
The average prison phone call is billed at 19 minutes, costing just over $6—a mark up of more than 630%!—in New York State from 1996 - 2007.
There are 3,335 collect call-only telephones available to the 66,000 inmates in 71 New York State DOCS facilities.
Approximately 500,000 calls from prisons are now completed each month, totaling more than 9.5 million minutes.
In fiscal year 2002, people in New York State prisons made 7 million collect calls totaling more than 124 million minutes, generating gross revenues exceeding $39 million. New York State collected 57.5% of this gross, $22.4 million in FY2002. NYS has collected over $200 million from this contract since its inception in 1996.
....................................................................................................................................Maintaining Family Contact Is Critical For Prisoners
A landmark study from the California Department of Corrections and numerous follow-up studies have showed that men and women in prison who maintain relationships with their loved ones are more likely to complete their parole without incident.
More than 80 percent of the state’s incarcerated men and women come from poor New York City neighborhoods, according to the Albany based Center for Law and Justice. With two-thirds of the prison facilities located three hours or more from New York City, telephone calls become a critical means for families to keep in touch.
Seventy-five percent of people in New York State prisons have no high school diploma, according to the Correctional Association, making letter writing and other written communication more difficult.
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The National PictureThose incarcerated in federal prisons can use an 800 toll-free number which typically costs 7¢ per minute.
The correctional phone market is worth well over $1 billion a year, according to the Florida Prisoners Legal Aid Organization.
