Overcharging for connection

I do not want to tell you what I have spent on prison phone calls in case my mother ever reads this. But because not many of you have had occasion to know about this criminality (I'm not talking about the inmates), I would like to devote today's 200 words to it.

People who could most use the encouragement of Mamma's voice are being charged $20 per fifteen minutes to reach out and touch someone. At least that's what I've been paying to CBS, Correctional Billing Services, division of Evercom Systems).

I phoned the correctional facility to ask why it's so expensive. They said they didn't know. They gave me a phone number to call and it was CBS. I asked one of the nice Caribbean people who answered and she said it was the prison that sets the rates. With a little investigation, I learned that exclusive contracts for prison phone service are awarded by a competitive bidding process. "Evercom…installs and maintains its equipment at no cost to the facilities, and then pays generous kickbacks for the right to extort the families and friends of inmates" (North Country Gazette, January 23, 2007).

Politicians are all about votes and votes are all about constituencies, and there isn't a big lobby for inmates. Besides, inmates get what they deserve, right? They've made their beds, let'em lie in them. They won't get help from the federal courts either, which have backed off from interference with internal prison affairs since the 1970s.

But Jesus gave us a peek at the final exam, and one of the questions regards how we treated those in prison (Matthew 25:36). Even if some of us can't visit them, it would be nice to let them call.