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| Bills seek to lower jail phone fees |
| By Indianapolis Star |
| Published: 01/28/2002 |
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It costs Dianne Dodd more than $100 each month to talk to her brother, who's incarcerated in the Marion County, Ind., Jail II. One 30-minute local call totals $3.55. Dodd doesn't want to think about how much she's spent since 1990, when her brother began serving a 30-year sentence for dealing drugs. Some state lawmakers think a $120 monthly jail phone bill is too much for Dodd -- or any other relative of an incarcerated Hoosier -- to be paying. The full state Senate could vote as early as this week on legislation that would limit how much local police agencies in the state's 18 largest counties can charge for the calls. A similar bill is pending in the Indiana House. Under Senate Bill 136, local officials running county jails, juvenile detention centers and community corrections facilities could charge no more for a phone call than the state's prisons now charge. Last year, state officials agreed to limit phone charges at Indiana's 34 prisons after prisoners' friends and family members complained about their costly bills. Inmates in state prisons and local jails can make collect calls from pay phones as long as the people they're calling agree to accept the charges. A contract that the state signed in October with Dallas-based T-NETIX allows the company to charge a $1.50 connection fee and 25 cents a minute -- less than half of what the charges had been. State officials get to keep 45 percent of that money. Officials running local facilities negotiate their own contracts, with some charging as much as $9.99 per connection and 59 cents a minute. Local law enforcement agencies get a share of that money, which is used primarily to make purchases and run programs that benefit the inmates. That's why some local officials oppose the bill. Last year, the Marion County Jail earned more than $2 million -- a 40 percent commission -- from its phone contract. Other law enforcement officials support the bill, however. Vigo County Sheriff William Harris thinks the lower fees could bring in more money, not less. 'I know my inmates will make twice as many calls.' The sponsor of the bill, a former sheriff, understands why some local law enforcement officials don't like his proposal. |
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