State makes deal with MCI over profits on inmates’ calls

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2000 | 10:07 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The state prison system has hit on a moneymaker -- about $200,000 a month coming from the telephone charges placed on collect calls by inmates to their families.

The state Department of Prisons has signed a contract with MCI Worldcom Communications of McLean, Va., to supply the telephone equipment and service. In return the prisons will get 51 percent of the profits.

The contract was approved by the state Board of Examiners Tuesday, but Gov. Kenny Guinn, the board chairman, wants to take a look at the deal.

"I want to see if we should be making this kind of money off the backs of families" of inmates who phone home collect, Guinn said.

The practice, which adds surcharges and higher base rates, making inmate calls a lucrative business, has been criticized nationally. In a Dec. 6 editorial, the New York Times stated: "It is wrong to penalize and profit from the families of inmates. If the federal courts do not correct the practice, (the state) should solicit bids for new contracts next year with a different aim in mind -- the cheapest phone calls possible, with no kickback for the state."

The issue in Nevada was raised by Pat Hines, an inmate rights advocate who told the Board of Examiners, "The cost to the families is out of sight."

A 15-minute call from the prison in Carson City to Georgia can cost a family $29. A collect call by the public from Carson City to Minden, 15 miles south, can cost $2.01 for nine minutes, but the family of an inmate is charged $4.34.

Inmate calls to their families must be collect.

Hines suggested the 51 percent kickback should not go to the prison. While it was earmarked for the inmate welfare fund, Hines said, it actually was siphoned off to pay the medical bills for inmates.

In addition, she said, the company that wins the contract should train inmates on how to install and repair telephones. The prisoners, she said, "need to be taught a marketable skill."

Nevada inmates pay the lowest phone charges in the nation's prison systems, Bob Bayer, director of the state Department of Prisons, said. The phone services to inmates also have been expanded, Bayer said.

The system has been in place for 11 years, he said. In 1998 the prison made $2.8 million off inmate phone calls.