It is important for rehabilitation for prisoners to keep in touch with their families and loved ones; however, because of the racket of prison phone calls, for some this is impossible.

The cost of the call varies from state to state. Some states charge up to $6.00 a minute and some charge a $1.00 a minute. Correctional Billing Services has a large population of the prisons on their network; however, Consumer Affairs shows how Correctional Billing Services is mostly a scam to make money off of prisoners and their families. If I was to get a collect call from an Indiana state prison, it would cost me $5.25 for 15 minutes. But it averages out to almost about $1,000 a year to talk to a prisoner on a regular basis to keep good communication going, if not more for some.

How can people afford that and why do these companies charge so much for collect calls? It is important for prisoners to talked to their families, especially if their families are not close enough to visit. Prisoners like to know their family is healthy and doing fine and the family would like to know the prisoner is healthy and doing fine, and this helps ease some of the stress.

According to Center for American Progress,

Why do so many state departments of correction, county jailers, and even juvenile detention facilities so often charge exorbitant fees for telephone services to their captive audiences? Research done in 2004 by the Associated Press showed that California counties earned on average about half of the more than $303 million from collect calls made by prisoners over a five-year period. So at the end of the day, prisoner’s families, most of which are poor, are paying a hidden tax to maintain the prisons.

Prison is becoming about profit than it is rehabilitation or trying to keep a relationship between his or her family. Businesses such as Correctional Billing, who has now changed their name to Securus Technologies because of all the complaints, are getting the monopoly on correctional calls. Even if a person has long distance on his or her phone, now it is to where you have to go through a correctional billing company to recieve calls from a prisoner and they charge way more than they need to...and the prisons are wondering why contraband cell phones are becoming such a problem!