Inmates In Private Georgia Prison Charged Five Dollars Per Minute For Phone Calls

For inmates at one Georgia prison, a one minute phone call could cost them five times more than they earn for a day of work.

The Correction Corporation Of America's Stewart facility, a private prison in Lumpkin, Georgia, is forcing prisoners to pay five dollars per minute to use the phone, Alternet reports (h/t ThinkProgress). The exorbitant rate would break most people's budget, but it's especially costly for inmates that the prison who make just one dollar per day to work at the facility.

Faced with huge budget shortfalls, states are increasingly relying on privatized prisons to house criminals in their state and the for-profit corporations behind those prisons are coming up with various ways to maximize revenue. The money the Stewart prison is collecting from its 2,000 prisoners to use the phone helped the prison net profits of $35 to $50 million a year, ThinkProgress reports.

Compared to the total earnings of CCA that sum may seem small, however. Last year, the private prison company raked in $1.7 billion in revenues, according to FOX Business. GEO Group, another for-profit prison corporation headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, saw $1.3 billion in revenues in 2010.

The telephone rates are just one way private prisons are maximizing revenues. To help keep their facilities stocked with inmates, the private prison industry helped to draft Arizona's tough immigration law and lobbied aggressively to get it passed, NPR reports. Indeed, while they make up only 10 percent of prisoners nationwide, according to a separate NPR report, the number of prisoners in private prisons has increased 1,600 percent from 1990 to 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union reports.

An even more controversial private prison source of income is the what federal prosecutors are calling "Kids for Cash," -- owners of private juvenile detention giving kickbacks to judges to sentence minors for benign offenses in an effort to boost revenue -- FOX Business reports. In Pennsylvania, two judges were recently sentenced to over 40 years in prison combined for accepting kickbacks from the owner of a juvenile detention center.

The judges sentenced minors for offenses that included a 10-year-old girl accidentally lighting her room on fire and a 13-year-old boy throwing food at his mother's boyfriend, according to Fox Business.

Meanwhile, government-run prisons face dire budget constraints forcing them to take unprecedented measures. A prison in Riverside, California announced that it will start charging prisoners $142.42 a day to save an estimated $3 to $5 milllion, CNNMoney reports. The Texas, thousands of prisoners are two meals a day on weekends, after the prison system made cuts to deal with budget constraints.

Comments

[Blueid1]

07:18 PM on 11/21/2011

Five bucks as minute is great with me...but that isn't where it ends. From what I know there are no outside call made that aren't reversed charges. If this is indeed true than the phone company is the profiteer. Why do they get phone calls anyway? They haven't closed the post offices yet have they?

[Goddess Isis666]

12:39 AM on 11/28/2011

What are you? Some kind of evil monster!!! Their are people who have done horrible crimes then there are people who did stupid things, then their are A LOT of people in prisons & jails who HAVE DONE NO CRIME AT ALL! More and more of them are being locked up everyday! BUT NO MATTER all of them have families, children, mothers, fathers, wifes...ECT...who love them nno matter what they did or didnt do! Its the families who didnt do nothing at all that have to pay and struggle!
BESIDES..."THOSE WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE!" You are not innocent! And put yourself in other peoples shoes....what happens if you by chance would get locked up, wouldnt you like to talk to your loved ones!

[Blueid1]

07:37 AM on 11/28/2011

The phone charges from prison are reversed charges. The burden of payment will be on the individual accepting charges not prisoners (not always family) and everyone has an opportunity to accept or decline charges. Sorry you are disturbed with my comment. People in prison aren't always innocent and not always guilty. People who commit crimes, more pointedly, violent crimes should have limited contact with the outside world. Special privileges should be assigned when appropriate, the picnics are for those not incarerated.

[builder101]

04:06 PM on 11/21/2011

Who this really harms is the family's of inmates, how can a ten year old afford to speak to her mom?
America's prison system is out of control - It has become apparent to most Americans we can not
criminalize morals - Tax and control mild drugs, we have list the drug war.

[Blueid1]

01:22 PM on 11/28/2011

My original point was there should be restrictions re: inmates. The prison situation has been out of whack for 40 years at least as is law inforcement. If the the phone co/prisons are making alot of money.,.don't use the phone, the price will drop.

[builder101]

02:17 PM on 11/28/2011

People locked in prison are very lonely and I am sure their families miss them - Not using the phones is not an option. I lived in the UK (work) for four years - In the UK the prison sentences are shorter, they allow family to communicate and visit the inmates and best of all the percentage of inmates committing another crime is 38% - one half of America's.

Note that it is The Correction Corp. that charges the outrageous fees - There are some government services we should not contract out.

[evalela]

03:17 PM on 11/21/2011

It's not the prisoners who pay,it's the family member who accepts the call who gets stuck with the bill,I'd call it double dipping!!!!!!

[Mister Grumpy]

11:09 AM on 11/21/2011

And who says that crime doesn't pay? Funny that things being done to prisoners would be considered inhumane when run by the government is okay if it's done by a capitalist corporation. Expect more of this is the future under GOP control.

[Dennisrf]

10:00 AM on 11/21/2011

A fine example of the monopoly capitalist business model at work. Prisons: the ultimate in captive markets. My guess is that incarceration for profit is one of the stronger growth sectors in our economy. This is the sort of innovative entrpreneurism the plutocrats tell us has made our country great.

[Firefly2018]

09:32 AM on 11/21/2011

May I remind you that about 95% of those in prison will some day walk free after serving their time. Study after study has shown that prisoners who maintain contact with family while incarcerated are much less likely to re-offend after their release. Staying in touch via phone is one of the ways for them to maintain contact but when the calls are so ridiculously overpriced, their loved ones can't afford to pay for the calls and there goes one way to stay in touch. Our society wants people in prison to disappear but think about it, they may be out of sight, out of mind to most of us while they are locked up, but one day they will be released and wouldn't it be better if they had a decent place to live while they get back on their feet. It's important not only for prisoners and their families, but to the society at large, that prisoners remain in contact with their loved ones on the outside. Talking on the phone is a very important part of helping someone in prison stay in touch with the outside world so that they can reacclimate after their release.

[NevaforLeadership]

09:14 AM on 11/21/2011

They are lucky to be allowed any phone calls at all.

[tek1]

03:22 AM on 11/21/2011

"Last year, the private prison company raked in $1.7 billion in revenues."

How corrupt is our country?

[NevaforLeadership]

09:15 AM on 11/21/2011

You would prefer that the taxpayers pay the bill?

[Mister Grumpy]

11:30 AM on 11/21/2011

The taxpayers are still paying for these prisons. Or do you think these corporations are nonprofit?

[tek1]

04:36 PM on 11/21/2011

We are paying the bill. While there is some private enterprise in the prison system, they receive the majority of the money from the taxpayer. I can't prove it because I have never tried, but I bet it costs us more.

[mjdloc157]

07:59 PM on 11/20/2011

oh how shocking ,making them pay for something, I guess free health care,dental,food,isn't enough for these convicts, now we should pay for thier phone calls too, lets have a felon phone tax

[Phlan]

02:53 AM on 11/21/2011

Um... no, that's not even close. And you know it.
300 dollars an hour will be charged to these prisoners’ mothers and fathers that want to talk to their sons. Not the prisoners.
And keep in mind- the private corporation keeps that 300 dollars as profit for CEO bonuses and shareholders’ dividends; it does nothing, absolutely nothing to help pay for the prisoners incarceration or upkeep. You pay 100% of that as a tax payer.

Those phone calls are for corporate profit and will never help lower what you an I pay to keep these prisoners. If it was a State Run prison... yes, absolutely those 300 dollars an hour would help keep the tax dollars down... just not in a corporately owned prison.

[realorpretend]

06:45 PM on 11/20/2011

They're felons. Good.

[Richard Norgard]

06:33 PM on 11/20/2011

"To help keep their facilities stocked with inmates, the private prison industry helped to draft Arizona's tough immigration law and lobbied aggressively to get it passed, NPR reports.".

The sucking noise is the sound of crony capitalism on steroids. The idea of people making a profit off of the incarceration of fellow citizens is obscene and the degree to which so many have come this regard this as somehow acceptable is a measure of moral and political decline as a nation. Private prisons have no place in a democratic society. For God's sake, stop voting for politicians who support this crap or accept campaign money from corporations who operate these institutions.

[bondcliff]

06:21 PM on 11/20/2011

This is the problem when the "free market" and deregulation goes wild. How many ex politicians do you figure are part of this new private prison industry? Just like the push to privatize education being pushed by Rupert Murdoch, who is an investor. When Wall Street takes over public responsibilities, you can bet they will find a way to make enormous profits that will eventually be picked up by the taxpayer. The private prison industry will never have an incentive to rehabilitate, that will cut into potential profits.

[Ricci Dats Me]

06:10 PM on 11/20/2011

This is only a story because THE INMATE doesn't pay for a thing!! Cain Dance!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs7fJ6jAOVU&feature=youtube_gdata_player funny video but deeper than the giggles. The humor is lowbrow, the message is Mensa! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs7fJ6jAOVU&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[msbeal]

05:37 PM on 11/20/2011

Who needs prison guard unions when you can have high priced prison CEOs.

[Britishdemocrat]

05:32 PM on 11/20/2011

That is an outrage.