GCI drops plan to charge fee for inmate calls
Published Saturday, January 10, 2009
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Stumble It!ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - An Alaska phone company has dropped its plan to charge a $2 fee for calls made by inmates of state prisons, jails and halfway houses.
The Regulatory Commission of Alaska in August announced plans to investigate complaints it received about the proposed fee.
The fee would have been billed to people who accept the calls.
Bail bondsmen were among those filing complaints. The businesses said the fee could cost them tens of thousands of dollars per year.
The RCA collected public testimony in September and GCI has withdrawn the fee proposal.
Community Discussion
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Are GCI users outside of jail making up the cost of these "free" phone calls? Can't they set up a prepay system for the prisoners to use. Let them pay for the luxury of a phone call. Now calls to their lawyers should be free or at least charged to the lawyers. But calls to girlfriends, families, etc should be at the expense of the prisoners.
We are paying for prisoners 'free phone calls'
Who do you think pays the jail house phone bill?
This include calls to lawyers, girlfriends, and phone scams.
Why not A pay phone?
You think you are footing the bill for inmates? You are not. Talk to a family member who has had the misfortune of having a loved one end up there.
Mention the word inmate and there is a group out there who immediately lashes out with "take it away" what ever it is. These people have nothing. True most of them got themselves into the situation but they have already lost it all. So find a new population to lash out against.. like maybe child molesters or our crooked law makers.
meant to add "that are still out on the street" "inmates" are already paying.
Kar98k put a sock in it. You think YOU are the one specifically paying for inmates phone calls? HAHA! Get a grip on yourself and realize exactly what you are saying before you even think twice before typing it. Some people out there, I tell ya.
I don't think they should charge for the calls but I think they should limit how many they can make in a day. I've worked in hotels where an inmate will keep calling all night long, whether you accept the call or not.
Do you pay a phone bill?
Why should inmates get a free phone service?
What does this teach someone in jail? Its a free ride, wake up and make it a punsiment to spend time in jail!
So...We have to pay for our phoneusage, as well as inmates' calls as well??? What ever happened to collect calls?
What you all don't realize is that this $2.00 a call was going to be for local calls only. Inmates families stll have to pay for collect calls if they are not local. How would you like to be charged $2.00 for local calls.
I think FFC is privatley owned, the prisoners pay for their own stay. All those DUI's you see in the paper? They all pay for being in jail.
I don't think they should be getting free phone calls, but $2 seems kind of steep. How about .50 a call. That would seem more reasonable. That's what most hotels charge for local phone calls.
whitewolf_1962 I would not like to pay 2.00$ for a call, one of many reasons I stay out of jail. Im sure you could go visit FCC and make donations to all the inmates you like!
FCC is a State Corredtional Center (not private)
When the inmates are transferred (as FCC is just a sentencing facility) is when the rates for phone calls really rack up. I pay them because I want to keep in contact with my loved one. Local calls should stay free..period dot end of story
An office I used to work in paid for each local call made. We didn't pay a flat monthly fee. I'm not sure what phone company it was, as it has been many years ago, but it was how non-residential billing was done. Is that still the case? If FCC has to pay for each local call, it is only right to pass that cost on to the inmate.
A very long time ago, it was legally determined that all in state calls due to the great distances involved within the state would necessarily be free of charge, in aprox. 2000 a phone company named EVERCOM scammed it's was into every prison, save one in the nation(so as not to be an ilegal MONOPOLY... it charges exobidant rates putting undue hardships on many families. couple that with the artificially inflated crime rate(YES, WE DID, AND STILL DO HAVE PROSECUTORS WHO DON'T CARE IF YOUR LOVED ONE IS INOCENT OR NOT, THEY JUST WANT A CONVICTION SO THEY CAN ADVANCE UP THE LADDER(Brings to mind Teri Bremner(FOSTER!)))). how would you like to have to say no to your Sister, or Brother, who is calling from Florence Arizona... and for a 30 min. call be charged between $35-50.00 when they are in prison for a crime that may, [O]r {M]ay not have even occured let alone someone whom is completely inocent.... Is there Reimbersment???? If so, please let me know personally, as my sister had to cut me off, as she could no longer afford the EVERCOM bill, and I commited [N]o crime... but was victimized by the District Attorney's office and to a lesser extent the court...
All to help a welfare mom avoid being exposed for fraud....
And you wonder why some of us think it is more than time to clean house in the courts!!!
IUR, good insight.
MrsS
I have GCI telephone service. Even though I don't reside at FCC, nor am I a bail bondsmen, will they continue to provide service and quit billing me? My family and friends like to hear from me (I think). It costs me hundreds of dollars a year. It's just not fair.
Glacierles, If I was you and I had nothing to do nor any insight on the situation. I would be quiet. You obviously have a perfect life and anyone else is screwed up. Give me a break.
truthin news- you were not getting calls from an Alaskan inmate all night. The phones are shut off at 10:00 pm. period.
Dondi- you speak the truth about Evercom- I wonder who reaps those benefits? It cost over $11.00 for a fifteen minute call. Should be criminal.
Inmates families pay for everything when they are in jail. They are a captive audience. They can not shop and they need to bathe and read and even snack.
They can only purchase items through the commissary and the prices are very inflated for generic (crap)brands.
If it were a private store you would compare the quality to a dollar store and the prices to Nordstrom's.
They pay for their incarceration also. You are not paying for the inmates in FCC- Don't worry- they are in jail and the very least of your troubles.
That's funny Wendee, Because my shift never started until 11 P.M. They sure sounded like local people to me.
Perhaps they can call later than 10 P.M. the first night they are in jail.
(Ring,ring,ring)...Hello, this is a free phone call from (inmate states their name) an inmate at Fairbanks Correctional Center, to accept this call please press 1....
Maybe it is a recurring nightmare.
akmom---
I'm not incarcerated, if that's what you mean by me leading a perfect life. Additionally, you are not me, so your admonishment to "be quiet" means little.
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Wendee---
I think that you are exaggerating when you state that the public doesn't pay for those imprisoned. How much of the bill is actually paid by prisoners? Do they, or we, pay the salaries of the guards, the maintenance of the facility, the food bill and the utility bills?
Gee - 2 bucks a call - to talk with family and children and friends.
Works for the wealthy, sucks for the poor...
GRRRRRRRRR Try paying for inmate phone bills. Its so expensive to talk to an inmate if they are out of the city. I resent that you people have no consideration for the families. They sent my husband to Kenai for a DWI and we had to pay 400 a month for an hour of conversation a night. It was a nightmare. Very tramatic to me and my children. How dare you say what people should have to go through. SHame on you for being so pious you think that its not hard enough on the family. The system is out of control. They just want to make a buck off of people that nobody gives a #$%^ about. We have still not completely recovered financially over that. It's been 7 years. It's hard enough. If you want to make it impossible for people to get out of the system than your going to have to keep supposedly paying for it. Two beers constututed hell for my entire family and then it was overturned and the court system said it was nobodies fault, just an honest mistake. BITE YOUR TONGE!
daisy---
Wow! 2 beers and your husband got sent to prison in Kenai. That does sound like a travesty of justice. Are you telling the whole story?
Glacierles-
I suppose you could say that we are paying for criminals as much as we are paying for unwed mothers, for injured or unemployable people, elderly and sick infants, that use our social service programs, there are certain requirements or aspects of our infrastructure the "community" demands weather it gets used or not.
You are most likely correct in your assumption that the fines and penalties and classes and additional insurance and additional lawyer bills, bail bond bills, commissary bills, phone bills, clothes for court bills, missed work, community service, additional taxi bills, the loss for life of their PFD, to just name a few are not going directly to the salaries of the DOC.
While the prisoners are in there if they can get a job they pay them between .15 and .50 cents an hour. There are not enough jobs to go around and it is a reward to be able to get one.
I would say there are a lot of ways that the system could pay for it's self a lot more effectively then to add a 2.00 fee to an already suffering family.
This is not a good idea, it is an easy idea. It does not demand the system reform. It does not demand a hard look at how we are treating the people who we attest to wanting to get out and live a productive life.
It does not make us change anything we do now it is a hot button and can almost always get the ignorant few to hear the word "inmate" and step aside and allow the "system" to do what ever they want because those people are no longer people they are inmates.
If you really want to have a person "pay" for their crime, allow them to work.
Require community service while they are doing their time.
Depending on their crime (most in Fairbanks are short timers) have them do their service in an area that demonstrates the results of their actions.
There are a lot of answers if we look for them.
So you may be right, maybe jails need to make more money off the families already left behind and already struggling.
Maybe the families that are now trying to survive have more then say that state employee who has full benefits, a full time well paying job all thanks to that "criminal" maybe the families don't need it as much as the DOC.
Powerful influential men have given up their freedom to have them built, I doubt it is a money losing venture."
see FDN August 11th, 2008-
Weimar was charged Monday with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, and structuring financial transactions - an effort to evade laws that require reporting of large withdrawals from bank accounts.
Weimar, who now lives in Big Arm, Mont., is the 11th person charged in the ongoing federal corruption probe.
truthin news- call the jail 458-6700 ask for booking and ask them how that is possible.
Does everyone know that inmates are charged $110.00 a day for each day they are incarcerated? And yes I know that if you do the crime be prepared to do the time. But it is outragous to be charged $2.00 a call for local calls. What would you do if you had to pay this amount for local calls?
The last time I saw a number it cost the offender $22,000.00 for a first DUI.
That was 5 years ago. Now, like everything else, I would bet it is more.
Wendee---
You comments are written well.
I would have no problem at all with prisoners working in chain gangs, and I've said so in previous comments.
Most of the expenses that you mention have nothing to do with taxpayer expenses. Hired attorneys, bail bonds, insurance, etc are all real expenses, but have nothing to do with tax payers forced to foot the bill for phone calls, except that it is more of a burden for the prisoner's family. I'm sorry that lawyers are so expensive, but that is beside the point.
I do disagree with you when you compare social spending on prisoners with that of social spending for injured, elderly, or sick. If I had my druthers, I would rather give free telephone service to the elderly, injured, and sick than give it to prisoners. But, I am a heartless conservative.
Glacierles-
I was not arguing that they are as or more deserving-only that you can only get so much blood out of that turnip.
The expenses have very much to do with taxpayers- how many Public Defenders vs paid lawyers do you think the system sees?
The money a family has will be spent when a family member gets in trouble.
Weather the system takes it in a "training fee" for the cop that arrested you or on the phone calls the family member makes to try to hold his house together until he can get back to take care of it.
Heartless Conservative? :) I hope not, as I often find myself in agreement with you.
This just happens to be a topic where I have seen that the blind ideal behind "make them pay" has very real and very expensive (for us the tax payers) consequences.
When the bread winner in is in jail more often then not the family left behind is forced to turn to the state for financial assistance.
Not only does the person in jail use our resources but also the family now trying to make it with half or all of their income gone.
The laws have also changed.
When we were kids if we were caught at a party we were sent or taken home and although jail would have been preferential to having to face our parents (Big Grin) we were not arrested.
We had an opportunity to grow up without a police record unlike the kids today.
I have two sons a year and a half apart- when they were 15 and 16 they had a fight before school- when they got to school the nurse called the troopers and had one arrested for assault.
This was a fight between brothers nothing more. No blood no broken bones but some bruises. My son spent his 16th birthday in jail.
It was senseless and expensive and a rotten thing to have to remember all his life.
There are so many reasons that I feel the judicial system has become a self serving machine but none of them take away from my belief that people should pay for what they do .. only that original charge is really a crime and not the latest social focus and the payment is fair and results in real opportunity to grow and change.
I am also very much a conservative with the humanity of a lot of experience.
Wendee---
You are persuasive.
Maybe some of the fault lies with the electorate voting lawyers into the legislature, where they naturally (if that word can be used when speaking of lawyers) further their own money making agenda.
Things that we did in the 60s and 70s as young people would probably result in jail time now. I don't envy the young.
Glacierles-
Thank you for having an open mind and listening.
Lawyers legislating morality.. scary.
I agree with you, I do not envy the young in today's world.
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