Posted on 03/30/2015 7:24:01 AM PDT by edwinland
Since the Pennsylvania police arrested Anthony Kofalt last March for walking out of a Walmart with 21 boxes of Crest White Strips he had not paid for, his wife, Heather, has spent $3,000 — about $60 a week — on phone calls to the prisons and jails where he has been held.
The cost of a 15-minute call is $12.95, although Mr. Kofalt is in a prison only a few hours’ drive from his wife’s home in Franklin, Pa. The cost for a similar non-prison call would be about 60 cents.
And every time Ms. Kofalt deposits $25 into the prison phone account, the private company that runs the system charges her $6.95.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Were it up to me the inmates would be forbidden to make or receive phone calls at all and we'd not be having this conversation.
As to punishing those who deserve it? Of course.
As to your conflating this issue with another one you'll kindly appreciate that I tend to avoid that kind of thing regardless of who tries to engage me in it. This topic is about the costs that inmates encounter in the course of their incarceration and that's what I am responding to.
If you care to review my comment history you'll see I am not at all supportive of police state tactics. But this topic is not about police state tactics. It's about criminals paying for the privilege of making and receiving phone calls which, as I said, I wouldn't allow them to make in the first place.
Nope. Sorry. Not for the “secure” phone systems used by prisons, at least those that contracted with the place I worked. They used an internal VOIP PBX, sure, but there was a huge database system tied to it and a bunch of processing logic. We had probably 15-20 different servers/server groups at least involved in processing every call.
Yup, thats the big thing in PA now, ARD. You still pay restitution for whatever you did (or got railroaded for) but they will dangle ARD (Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition) in front of you and will wipe your record (but not the ARD) clean after 12 months. ARD costs on top of the restitution, court fee’s, etc...Some counties, as soon as you have done your course (usually just a couple days long), paid your fine and completed community service, your record is cleaned and your on your way (quite literally in a matter of weeks). Other counties like having you in the system and will make supervision/probation last an entire year. This is going on for non-violent “crimes” all over western PA. I talked to one cop (decent guy btw) who said it is getting so far out of control with hard ass cops that the state/county is literally creating criminals out of thin air; could be your neighbor in up-scale suburbia or a manager at work. Maybe even a teacher at the local school. They claim it is a way for people who just made a mistake to clean up their act and record but with the young cops of today with aspirations of being a DA one day its wrecking peoples lives.
Officer Friendly stops you
This is about The State stealing 3,000 dollars from the wife, not the prisoner.
Or maybe you think the state should provide free phone calls for the prisoners? heck, give them all cell phones and video games.
raise the cost of something you get less of it. I don’t care what you might think, this is not a get rich thing.
Get a bigger picture here, it takes guard time to give the prisoner access to a phone and all this increases risk to all involved. You think we as taxpayers should subsidize the cost?
This ditzy wife thinks she needs him on the phone 12/7, let her pay for it, it does cost extra.
Woman, you have quite the internal narrative going on in your head, which apparently overlays any speck of reality.
I wrote: You're intent on punishing anyone you think needs punished.
You're intent on punishing this woman. Quit changing the subject. She didn't do anything wrong.
BTW - don't correct my English. "needs punished" or "needs whatever-past-tense-verb"" is an acceptable colloquialism in many parts of the country.
No, I think that "The cost of a 15-minute call is $12.95" is theft.
Perhaps you don't.
I think we have ANOTHER adherent of The Managerial State here.
Apparently, wardaddy, subjects like this rip off the mask of the Statists in the Free Republic audience. Here's ANOTHER one. :)
No, I'd have a problem with being a gunthug for the current American Police State.
"Policing For Profit", just like the Founding Fathers intended...
Oh, wait - the Founding Fathers didn't HAVE "polices under every rock", did they? They didn't even have "police", as we know them.
Matter of fact, they didn't have full-time state-paid prosecutors, either...
Inmates do not have a right to make or receive phone calls. Access to a telephone is a revocable privilege for inmates in all fifty states.
Argue ‘til you’re blue in the face, this is the way it is.
And that is called ‘reality’.
On the topic of the woman you’re concerned about? I personally don’t give a damn about her. I really don’t care what she pays for calling an inmate or anyone else. That’s up to her.
No one is forcing her to call anyone. That’s about where my concern for her ends.
Now, now - don’t swell up and explode, dear. :)
Soon, we shall all be prisoners.... and who will object against abuse directed against US?
Speaking of “needs punished”.
Get some perspective - every incarcerated person didn't personally violate you, so quit acting like it.
I've heard that about Georgia. When I was briefly jailed for my various indiscretions, my fellow detainees strongly warned me against taking First Offender status.
Excellent use of the colloquialism! I believe you have it!
There is a weird theme here on occasion that criminals deserve about anything
It’s a strange time where the posters have faith in govt administration
You’re off topic again. It’s about the cost of prison phone calls.
Have you had any experience in the prison system? Do you know how much bored prisoners manipulate the system? I have accepted and declined many emergency collect calls and put funds in prisoners accounts.
But you aren’t here to learn anything are you? Just another idealist who has a single issue that is a burr under your saddle.
The world is not fair, never will be. BUT LET ME BE CLEAR, IT TAKES MUCH MORE TIME AND RESOURCES TO MAKE A CALL IN PRISON AND MOST OF THEM DO NOT NEED TO BE MADE.
Our son is in prison (15 year sentence - voluntary manslaughter of our oldest son, his brother).
He was in the county jail for two years and has been prisons the last four years. The charges for his phone calls have never been disclosed, at least to us. A private company, Access Corrections currently has the prisons contract. It's $6.95 for up to a $50.00 deposit on his account, and then the amount charged goes down a little on higher amounts deposited. To this day I have no idea how much minutes cost. I could probably find out if I were motivated enough.
I agree with you that it is not theft. It is voluntary on our part. I think the companies getting the contracts do rake in money. It's free enterprise. I understand that from the point of view of the state, phone calls are a privilege for prisoners that can be revoked.
The prison he is currently in is two hours away. We do get up off our butts and go to visit him every other week or so.
Just my two cents.
Cordially
It’s a strange time where the posters have faith in govt administration
I'm pretty sure that in their little world, neither Solzhenitsyn, his fellow "inmates" nor the Jew "inmates" would get to have phone calls, either.
After all, the gruberment knows what it's doing, amiright?
AmIright? LOL! ;-)
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