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Are High Phone Bills Cruel and Unusual Punishment? The FCC Thinks so, and Plans to Mandate...
Daily Signal ^ | 10/21/15 | James Gattuso

Posted on 10/21/2015 4:32:08 PM PDT by markomalley

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To: 100American

Suffering from ...Lacakafreephonitis, first identified as a malady by Barkys minions who are merely doing it (free phones)

*************************************************************************

They should be known as Bushphones, since the free phone business started on his watch, not Obama’s.


41 posted on 10/21/2015 5:51:05 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (Bill and Hillary Clinton are the penicillin-resistant syphilis of our political system.)
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To: Graybeard58

OK, we meet in the middle ...

OBusha...no

Bushama...Now we are getting somewhere ...

workin on it, any ideas sparkin on your side compadre?


42 posted on 10/21/2015 5:54:40 PM PDT by 100American (Knowledge is knowing how, Wisdom is knowing when)
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To: markomalley

Prison phones bear no relation to real world phones..

Phones and cords must be armored to prevent destruction.

Calls require a PIN system to positively ID the inmate.

Calls are monitored and recorded onto a hard drive.

Calls are identified by inmate, cell block, time, # called, and duration.

Data is regularly demanded by D.A.’s, LEO’s and the courts.

There are constant requests to have #’s blocked from contact.

Outside contacts have to set up accounts with the phone co. and prepay because of rampant payment default.

In spite of warnings about monitoring and recording, many crimes are planned and committed over the phone.

Often, the family members are complicit in the criminal acts. I have heard mothers taking orders for delivering contraband and grandmothers offering advice on how to dissuade a witness from testifying.

When you get a call from a correctional facility threatening your daughter with gang rape if you don’t change your testimony, you might not think that these precautions are so outrageous. These are not nice people and they aren’t inside for missing Sunday school.

Under most plans, $50.00 per month enables an inmate reasonable contact with friends and family. If they want to live on the phone there’s no doubt it will prove expensive. With interference, many facilities will remove the phones, issue paper and stamps, and increase visitation hours. There is nothing that requires phones in a prison setting so long as other means of communication are available. The exception is the booking phone to call a lawyer or arrange bail.


43 posted on 10/21/2015 6:00:38 PM PDT by davius (You can roll manure in powdered sugar but that don't make it a jelly doughnut.)
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To: AlaskaErik
With today's technology, Skype and email can be securely monitored and would cost a fraction of traditional telephone service.

A lot of prisoner families don't have an internet connection.

That's not the correctional facility's problem. If the inmates' relatives or loved ones want to see their beloved scumbag, they'll get connected.

44 posted on 10/21/2015 6:05:54 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (I am going to get those guns out of peoples hands. - Hillary Clinton 10/05/2015)
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To: markomalley

Well this sounds like a racket to me. I think I’m with the feds on this.


45 posted on 10/21/2015 6:06:19 PM PDT by jocon307
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To: mass55th
And pray, how do you accommodate 2,000+ inmates in a facility to have this avenue of communication?

Set up a secured, monitored room within the facility where each inmate would have an allotted 10 min to correspond with their relatives.

46 posted on 10/21/2015 6:08:14 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (I am going to get those guns out of peoples hands. - Hillary Clinton 10/05/2015)
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To: glorgau

“The goal of prison should not be solely to punish but also to rehabilitate offenders back into civil society.”

Yes, that is right.

Or else just be like the Muslim maniacs, hack of limbs and execute everyone all the time for everything.

Hey, at least you save on the phone charges!


47 posted on 10/21/2015 6:10:17 PM PDT by jocon307
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To: Larry Lucido

“...prisons may become populated by folks who simply refused to bake a cake for someone.”

Good point!


48 posted on 10/21/2015 6:11:11 PM PDT by jocon307
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To: 100American

How about that E.I.T.C. (Earned Income Tax Credit), many people just think it’s a democrat invention, transferring wealth on a grand scale.

First proposed by Nixon (R), he wasn’t around long enough to sign it into law, Gerald Ford (R) did that. It has increased under every administration since, without exception.


49 posted on 10/21/2015 6:20:01 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (Bill and Hillary Clinton are the penicillin-resistant syphilis of our political system.)
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To: Graybeard58

Buh Bye, people need to drive themselves forward, that was an attempt to shield lower incomes from massive spending needing cover I am sure...

Social Engineering, the Ultimate Goal of The New World Order...


50 posted on 10/21/2015 6:22:59 PM PDT by 100American (Knowledge is knowing how, Wisdom is knowing when)
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To: 31R1O

Not even while they are still in prisin?


51 posted on 10/21/2015 6:35:05 PM PDT by GeronL (Ted Cruz is for real, 100%)
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To: mass55th

You are not choosing to stay in jail if you are jailed for not paying excessive fines, overzealous prosecutors or senseless three strikes laws. If you want to rehabilitate folks as well as punish them you shouldn’t kick them when they are already down in my opinoon.


52 posted on 10/21/2015 6:36:48 PM PDT by 31R1O
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To: BykrBayb

There are cost and then there are reasonable cost. Monopolies are usually regulated to constrain the power they have over captive customes. Prisoners are no different in my opinion and should be afforded the same protections.


53 posted on 10/21/2015 6:40:07 PM PDT by 31R1O
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To: markomalley

I agree and I am a correctional officer...it is absolute nonsense that a call from a prison should cost anymore than a call from a house immediately outside prison walls...it accomplishes NOTHING other than to penalize people in a particular location...a meaningless ripoff.


54 posted on 10/21/2015 6:53:37 PM PDT by terycarl (COMMON SENSE PREVAILS OVERALL!!)
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To: relictele
If criminals wish to communicate, they can write a letter.

So if their six kids would like to talk with daddy who is in the slammer for two years for a semi-minor violation....that is O.K. with you???

55 posted on 10/21/2015 6:56:18 PM PDT by terycarl (COMMON SENSE PREVAILS OVERALL!!)
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To: 31R1O
or senseless three strikes laws.

so, would 4 convictions, or perhaps 5 in special cases be a better idea.....Most people commit 0 offenses, three strikes, in my opinion, is 1 too many....and the sentencing should be severe and widely advocated....the jackass that just killed the N.Y. cop was 30 years old and had 28 convictions...should have been incarcerated, without possibility of release for 30 years.....that tends to slow one down.

I'm a correctional officer and watch these worthless pieces of debris work the system and play minority aces whenever possible....they are a sad group who don't WANT TO BE REHABILITATED.

56 posted on 10/21/2015 7:18:40 PM PDT by terycarl (COMMON SENSE PREVAILS OVERALL!!)
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To: markomalley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ebudnWlh4


57 posted on 10/21/2015 7:21:50 PM PDT by Osage Orange (Obama practices "religion" in the mirror.)
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To: 31R1O
"You are not choosing to stay in jail if you are jailed for not paying excessive fines, overzealous prosecutors or senseless three strikes laws."

I guess you think the majority of convicts behind bars are all innocent.

Over zealous prosecutors? Just remember, most criminals never do the time for the actual crimes they commit. It's called plea bargaining, and it used way too often in the justice system. It's cheaper to let them plea bargain to a lesser charge, so the criminal is actually getting a break from the get-go.

I don't agree with you about the three strikes law either. The first New York State prison inmate sentenced under the three strikes law was a convict, who as a juvenile, shot and murdered an elderly man on a bus because he wanted to know how it felt to kill somebody. He was sentenced as a youthful offender, and sent to a Y/O facility. As years passed, he was in and out of prison for various charges. On his last stay, he attacked and stabbed a C.O. in the visiting room with a sharpened pen. Fortunately the officer survived. The inmate was tried and convicted. After he had caused a disturbance at the maximum security he was at, he was shipped out to our facility's Special Housing Unit. Our facility was a Medium A (a maximum with fences), but we had a maximum security box. Shortly after he was admitted to our box, he managed to start a fire in his cell, damaging property, and causing a life-threatening situation not only for the officers on duty there, but the other inmates in the box. Unfortunately he survived, and was shortly thereafter transferred to another maximum security facility. He was the first inmate tried and sentenced under NY's Persistent Felony Offender Law that had just been enacted. Three strikes Laws are necessary especially in relation to violent offenders, and the repeated crimes they commit against innocent people.

58 posted on 10/21/2015 7:50:53 PM PDT by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist
"Set up a secured, monitored room within the facility where each inmate would have an allotted 10 min to correspond with their relatives. "

They had that with the two-per month, 10 minute phone calls, in phone booths, in a central location. The calls were supervised by an officer, and could be monitored within the prison's arsenal. The calls were scheduled according to an inmate's request. If he couldn't get through to the person he tried calling, he could try another number, or be rescheduled in a day or two. As long as he got his two calls a month. It worked like a charm, and there were no complaints from the inmates. So the state fixes something that isn't broken, gives them more phones, and more available access time to the phones. And the inmates are still complaining. You could give an inmate a steak dinner and a beer every night, and he'd still find something to bitch about.

Bottom line, in most state prison facilities, the staffing levels have to be approved within the state budget, and extra staff to run a program like you suggest would more than likely be out of the question. In the last facility I worked in, we never had the number of officers that Albany had mandated we needed to safely run the place. There's been budget problems in NY State for years. Can't imagine it's any better in other states. Makes me glad I'm retired.

59 posted on 10/21/2015 8:11:35 PM PDT by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
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To: glorgau
"The goal of prison should not be solely to punish but also to rehabilitate offenders back into civil society."

It's not. Besides punishment and rehabilitation, people are sent to prison to protect the public, incapacitation, and also as a deterrence.

60 posted on 10/21/2015 8:16:33 PM PDT by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
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