Don't gouge with jail phones

Generally speaking, county jail inmates aren't people of means. Nor are their friends and families. For inmates, the occasional telephone call home can be an important means of coping while they serve their sentences. For their loved ones, the contact helps to keep familial relationships and friendships intact.

Most jails require inmates to call collect, which is a way for the jail to maintain control. Because of security concerns, jail or prison administrators can ill afford to permit inmates to carry anything of value, such as phone cards, so inmates who want to phone home must either call collect or use pay phones.

While the rationale for collect calls in jails makes sense, the calls themselves shouldn't become a cash cow for state and local governments. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case. Salt Lake County, for instance, receives a 45 percent share of revenues generated by inmates' collect calls handled by private contractors, according to a recent Deseret Morning News investigation. The county's commissions add up to nearly $1 million a year, which is a healthy chunk of change.

If Salt Lake County channeled the revenue into inmate programs such as substance abuse treatment or mental health therapy, the charges would make some sense. Instead, the revenue goes to a telecommunications fund to offset the costs of county-wide telephone infrastructure.

No question, the county needs to recover the cost of running a jail. But should the friends and families of inmates be expected to subsidize the telecommunications network county-wide? The answer should be obvious.

In essence, the county's share of the collect-call revenue is a tax. It is a tax paid by people who can least afford it. The Deseret Morning News report by Erin Stewart quoted one woman who works two jobs — one of them as a custodian for Salt Lake County. She may have to disconnect her phone because she can't afford collect phone charges from her son, who is in the county jail.

One county official said families on fixed incomes could refuse to accept calls from inmates or block their calls. That would be the "tough love" approach. Although it may save families money, it likely would raise the frustration levels of inmates. Then they become more difficult for corrections officers to manage.

Davis County, which contracts with EverCom for its collect-call service, earmarks its telephone service revenues for inmate programs such as life-skills classes and recreation. Seemingly, Salt Lake County could likewise channel its telephone revenues into programs that could address some of the more pressing needs of its jail population — mental health and substance abuse. Dealing with those issues would likely make the jail population easier to manage and zero in on issues that contributed to the inmates' criminal behavior in the first place. If nothing else, it would render the collect-call "tax" a little more palatable.