A federal judge recently denied a request by current and former Harris County jail inmates to change the current system for placing phone calls from the county's four jail facilities.
Collect calls placed from inmates are anonymous, and because of that, the plaintiffs argued that it prevented them from contacting others.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Calvin Botley noted that Daniel King, a former inmate and plaintiff, posed no risk of being jailed again and therefore had no standing to seek an injunction that would force the county to identify Harris County jail inmates on outgoing calls.
While in jail in 1998, King, 47, attempted to place a phone call to his ex-girlfriend, who refused to accept the call. She later told King that she would have accepted the charges had she known he was placing the call.
Other plaintiffs testified that they had to make arrangements with relatives to accept calls at certain times.
The judge said the system does not violate the plaintiffs' constitutional rights but instead protects unwilling recipients from accepting phone charges from calls placed by inmates.
According to the testimony of Stephen Jennings, executive director of the county's Central Technology Division, recipients of a phone call placed from an inmate must pay a fee of $4.10. That amount is split between Southwestern Bell and the county. A local collect telephone call placed by a non-inmate is $1.30.
Jennings said implementing a phone system that would identify inmates would cost between $30,000 and $50,000.