Increased phone costs an additional punishment for prison inmates: advocates

Phone calls, allowing inmates to have a lifeline to family and friends, used to be essentially free.

But now prisoners who can’t pay are out of luck unless their family can foot the bill.

“It was kind of a shock,” said William, a Winnipeg resident who didn’t want his last name used.

His brother is inside a provincial correctional facility and would talk to the family up to an hour a day.

“The price basically went from zero and, under what he was calling previously, it would have been about $700 per month,” he said.

“We can do half of what he was talking previously, which is still about $350 a month, which is definitely tough to afford.”

Manitoba signed a five-year contract Texas-based Synergy Inmate Phone Solutions which came into effect Oct. 17. Amy McGuinness, spokesperson for Manitoba Justice Minister Heather Stefanson, said in an email anyone in remand custody can have up to three calls per day at no cost.

The new system allows inmates to receive voice mail and benefits inmates from rural communities who would otherwise have to pay long distance rates, she said.

Synergy also provides service to correctional facilities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia. A coalition in Saskatchewan is fighting the phone fees in jails there.

Synergy wouldn’t confirm the fees are in place in other provinces.

“Because of contractual restraints, I am not at liberty to discuss any details with any of our provincial accounts,” wrote Synergy Canada president Charles Slaughter in an email.

Alberta charges a $1.25 flat fee for local calls up to 20 minutes long. Long distance calls cost inmates 25 cents a minute. Those in remand also receive five free calls a day for the first 30 days.

Saskatchewan hasn’t confirmed what fees it has in place.

“Saskatchewan has had Synergy phones since 2010. There are a couple of other provinces who have adopted it as well and it seems to be the direction that things are going,” said Jacquie Nicholson, a prisoner solidarity activist in Winnipeg.

Nicholson is worried prisoners will lose connections to family and friends because of money.

“Now there’s children that can no longer speak to their mothers and their fathers, parents who can no longer speak to their children,” she said.

“Punishment within punishment makes the general public feel good. They like to think there are these bad guys and we’re making them feel really bad, which is a very simplistic way of thinking,” she said.

“What kind of people are they going to be when they get out?”

Hay said the cost of prison calls is part of a bigger problem. Prisoners still presumed innocent at Alberta remand centres are no longer allowed in-person visits and there’s chronic overcrowding as well.

“It’s always amazing to me when people are released from prison and then commit another offence. We throw our arms up in the air and say we don’t get it,” Hay said.

“The further you remove someone from society, the harder it’s going to be to bring them back.”

— Follow @BillGraveland on Twitter

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Increased phone costs an additional punishment for prison inmates: advocates

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