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
Access Corrections is not a phone provider. They act sort of like a Pay Pal for prisons. You deposit money to them and they pass it along to the inmate’s commissary account with charges for restitution and etc. being taken off first. In California the CDCR took off 95% of every deposit for my father. So for him three Twinkies actually cost about $100.
https://www.accesscorrections.com/
I don’t know about your sons’ prison but I remember IWTS was the phone company for my father’s prison.
Free enterprise? Ha!