A LITTLE ARKANSAS PRISON PHONE HISTORY - UNBELIEVABLE COST OF COMMUNICATION WITH LOVED ONES BEHIND THE WALLS - Government - http://maxpages.com/darkevilworld/Arkansas_Prison_Phone

Well into the 1990s, ADC prisoners were not allowed to make "personal" phone calls. Only inmates that had a verifiable family emergency or who had a legitimate reason to contact an attorney could officially do so. Of course, since allowing personal calls was basically subject to the discretion of ADC employees in general, there were always several "inmates" who were allowed to make calls anyway. Snitches were cultivated, favors were garnered, money was paid to allow a select few to receive good ol' boy favors through use of the phones.

In part because of the abuses that were going on within the system, I initiated a massive legal war against Arkansas and the ADC in 1992 with the hope of improving our circumstances and environment. In the effort to retaliate, the goons' first tactic was to shut down my ability to communicate with the outside world. A creep assistant warden back then, Tom Pitts, first severed my "legal" telephones calls to the attorneys for whom I had worked for some years, saying that I had "abused" the privilege because I had made some 30 calls over a 6 month period. Under no circumstances could this be deemed abusive given the fact that attorneys were actively representing me in two levels of federal court, and with executive clemency; and dozens of inmates had made that many calls in a matter of weeks, never mind in months. Pitts then wrote a phoney disciplinary, but he was later fired from the ADC for falsifying records sent to the State Police in an official investigation.

A couple of years, after MCI and the ADC had cooked up their scheme to racketeer with the inmate phones. The key to the plot was to limit the inmates' calls to 10 minutes apiece under the pretext that the call limit was necessary in order to assure that all 10,000 ADC inmates had equal opportunity to use the phones. It didn't take a rocket scientist to do the math and to know that the call limit was the ADC's portion of the conspiracy - since it was THE KEY to everything. Indeed, ALL that the ADC had to do to get its juicy slice of the phone pie was to contrive a reason for and then to implement that 10 minute call limit.

In 1994, I decided it was time to file a lawsuit challenging a host of unconstitutional problems involving the newly installed phones and MCI's and the ADC's practices. It was obvious to me that most of the "limitations" spouted to us in order to justify the 10-minute per call scheme were wholly contrived. It didn't take long to understand that the name of the game was money; millions of dollars of money extorted from our families and friends. I also knew that thousands of families of my fellow prisoners would be sent staggering phone bills for the next several months because they did not know what MCI's exorbitant rates were, and I needed to try to prevent that if I could.

After I had filed the suit, the Attorney General's Office went into a tizzy alleging that I had filed the suit solely to "take credit" among the inmates for having forced the phone system to be installed when, as the AG said, the ADC's own benevolence and "concern for our welfare" was the reason for the new system. This immature and unprofessional sniveling completely ignored the fact that the entire lawsuit to which they were defending with this drivel sought to STOP full installation of the MCI system. Not only was it obvious on the face of the suit that I was not trying to "take credit" for the phones to curry prestige among the prisoners, but if installation of the system was stopped because of my suit, I was going to be in some deep trouble with a lot of the prisoners for having obstructed it!

As part of the defense in justifying the call rates and how thesystem was actually to be implemented and limited in this Arkansas prison setting, the AG also spouted a string of statistics to "prove" to the court how "reasonable" and legitimate the MCI system was. First, the AG blamed the Arkansas Public Service Commission for setting the rates of $1.05 for local, $2.05 for in-state long distance, and $3.05 for out-of-state base hook-up fees, and the .22 cents per minute beyond that. Therefore, they asserted, neither MCI nor the ADC could be faulted for the COST of inmate phone calls to customers - meaning our families and friends. The AG's brief also disclosed that MCI had made $600,000 in profit for August 1994, that inmates averaged only 9.8 minutes per call, and that so-and-so many thousands of calls had been made, ad infinitum. The focal point of the AG's statistics was to show the court that the 10-minute call termination scheme was absolutely needed in order to assure all that prisoners had access to the phones, and that the statistics showed that this practice did not work any hardships. However, the AG generally sidestepped my claim that the "10 minute call duration policy was precisely HOW MCI and the ADC were racketeering, since those hook-up charges every 10 minutes is where almost HALF of the profit was made -- while there was NO LEGITIMATE REASON for the calls to be terminated every 10 minutes. THIS IS A CRUCIAL POINT OF ATTACK IN ANY LAWSUIT.

After reading the AG's brief I could not believe our good fortune in being provided the "real" statistics. Up to that point it had been impossible for either the inmates or our families to get this kind of information. Heck, we couldn't even get accurate official statements as to what the actual MCI rates were!

From the AG's self-serving statistics I then calculated some of our own - thereby fairly demonstrating that the entire thing was nothing but an extortion and scam by MCI and the ADC. (As discussed below).

After several more stages of litigation, and as part of a much larger effort, I decided that a suit against the ADC and MCI filed by PRISONERS, instead of by free world persons, was taking a big chance with losing the case. First, the courts generally will never allow inmates to secure the kinds of evidences that may be needed and that a lawyer outside could otherwise easily obtain (like MCI memos, research funding and results, and actual contracts etc). Second, and perhaps even more important, "inmates' rights" relative to any claims against either someone like MCI, the ADC, or the Arkansas Public Service Commission, simply are not the same as if they are brought by free citizens. Inmates only have "minimal rights" in many situations, especially in regard to First & Fourth Amendment protections. It is a definite litigation handicap.

Also, the ADC had already stated that it was going to spend the money it would make off the inmate phones in renovating the prison units and for improving conditions generally. IF that money was in fact spent within the ADC instead of lining some good ol' boy pockets like much of the Inmate Welfare money had done, much of the abuse, violence, corruption and intolerable living conditions would in fact be stopped or remedied. So, I made the decision to temporarily "trade off" pursuing the phone suit and attempting to stop the unfair cost to our families. I dismissed the suit in 1996. It was a hard decision to make unilaterally, but I don't regret it. The inmates' needs were simply too great and immediate - even if it meant that our own families would foot most of the bills for bringing needed change. However, I had also decided that this kind of suit should not be filed by an inmate anyway, and because it would be a "continuing" violation, free citizens could later file suit and recoup the money that was spent by our families to renovate the state's prisons in the meantime.

Through 1995, to the present, the ADC has in fact poured several million dollars into renovating the Cummins Unit alone. Much of that money has come from federal accreditation funding that was not available at the time phone money first began pouring in, and because Bill Clinton diverted money into "his" home state. But, most of the phone money has in fact also been spent on making improvements to our environment. There has now been a measurable decrease in violence, injury, and abuse, and the generally poor living conditions have been improved. It was worth dropping the suit...for a while.

In making the decision to dismiss the suit, I also felt that a conspiracy could not be proven at that time, simply because an inmate plaintiff would not be allowed to engage the legal "discovery" needed, and because too few suits had been filed in other states by that time to show the "patterns" by which to prove such a claim. Now, since suit has since been filed in several other states, and since legislative and other bodies have officially investigated inmate phone abuses in other prison systems, the blueprint of the conspiracy, has become plainly "visible." Perhaps a new suit filed against the Arkansas end of the business will now persuade a jury to impose punitive damages. If MCI and the ADC face the possibility of getting smoked for a few billion dollars in punitive damages, they will HURRY UP and straighten things out. IT IS CRITICAL for people to realize this. Also, some consumers have suffered a wide range of collateral damages as a consequence of the staggering phone bills they received from MCI, and those also should be compensated.

Blueprint of A Conspiracy

It is important to recognize that there are actually three major "players" in the conspiracy to defraud and racketeer from inmates' families, and that is likely the case in most other states where MCI has installed an inmate phone system. The first player is the state's Public Service Commission (or equivalent body) that is responsible for setting fair rates for a public phone service. The second is the corporation that provides the service. And the third is the department of correction that "allows" the installation of the phone system. However, although these three bodies must work in tandem for the scheme to work optimally, there are clearly defined limited roles for each, where any one body must reach an agreement with one of the other two bodies in order to achieve the ultimate end. Specifically, the Public Service Commission has little to do except to set a FAIR RATE for the TYPE OF SERVICE PROVIDED to the public. However, that Commission also either needs to be tricked by MCI, or to FEIGN ignorance about how the BASE PHONE RATE for the TYPE of call service to be provided will be MANIPULATED by MCI and the ADC (i.e. an "electronic operator collect call only" system). As a legal gambit, it probably would be smart simply to allow the Arkansas Public Service Commission to get away with ultimately saying that it did not know that MCI and the ADC would manipulate the Commission's fair (even if high) rates under a call limit scheme. The gambit would be smart because asserting a conspiracy against three entities is more complex than against two - AND by allowing the Commission to escape any liability it may have IF IT DID KNOW that its rates would be recharged to the consumer every 10 minutes, it will leave only the ADC and MCI to blame each other. Believe me, both of them will scramble to say that the other one "tricked and duped" them into improper actions once the heat really gets turned up. They always do.

Once the Commission has been approached to set the general phone call rate, MCI cannot, of course, dictate "prison security" or other limitations upon HOW the inmate phone system is to be used within the prison system. It has no corporate right to dictate to the ADC to implement a call limit policy, or to engage certain alleged "security" limitations upon inmates' phone calls. So, MCI MUST conspire with the ADC to gain its voluntary participation in "optimizing profits."

Finally, the third player -- the ADC -- cannot dictate MCI's corporate interests relative to the phones, so if it is to make a profit from the phones as well, it can only do so by reaching and "agreement with MCI to do certain things to earn its slice of the pie.

Upon learning of lawsuits against MCI and other state prisons, I was surprised to learn that few persons have asked themselves WHY it is that the prison system ITSELF ends up making so much money off the phones? I mean, after all - WHY should the ADC profit AT ALL from a telephone call I make to a private citizen? The ADC is not a telephone corporation, and is not in the phone business in any way. Conversely, WHY would a corporation like MCI EVEN OFFER the ADC such a juicy slice of the pie in the first place? Think about it. Why?? Within that question lies a major key. We know from the start that MCI is not sharing up to 40% of its profits with the ADC (as the grapevine rumors just because MCI is such a benevolent group of folks determined to share their wealth "just because." So, WHY?!!!

Sure, it might be worth it to MCI simply to be "permitted" to extend its services to a new consumer base, but a common person, and a jury as well, I feel, knows that there is more to this than appears at first gloss. And, to cut to the quick, the real reason that MCI pays so much of the profits to the ADC, is because the ADC MUST COOPERATE with applying the Public Service Commission's GENERAL RATES by way of a CALL LIMIT scheme, so that hook-up charges can be reaped by MCI every 10, 15, or 20 minutes - instead of having ONE base hook-up fee no matter how long the call actually would be. In other words, MCI could not unilaterally DICTATE to the ADC to implement a call termination scheme as a matter of corporate right, so It MUST get prison officials to AGREE to the call limit scheme…in return for a nice slice of the pie.

To make the point, let's do a little hypothetical math. Let's say that the ADC does not limit inmates' calls to 10 minutes each - but that inmates can talk as long as they wish. For the sake of the math, let's keep it simple. Let's say that under this system, 1,000 prisoners voluntarily make a 1 hour call every week and that MCI will charge $3.00 for the initial call hook-up and .22 cents per minute of conversation. Totaled up, that would be 1,000 hook-up charges (or $3,000), plus 60,000 minutes at 22 cents (or $13,200), for a total of $16,200. (This kind of arrangement is also what the Commission had in mind when it set the basic rates) Under this scenario the ADC gets nothing, because it has nothing to do with the phone system.

However, let's say that because MCI is interested in MONEY, it goes to the ADC and offers 20 (or 40) percent of the net profits IF THE ADC AGREES TO IMPLEMENT A POLICY THAT LIMITS THE INMATES to a 10 minute call (although it does NOT limit how many 10 minute calls the inmates can make). 20 % is a nice slice of the pie for the ADC to do no more than to ONTRIVE a reason to limit the inmates' calls to 10 minutes!.

Re-doing the math after this "call limit" profiteering conspiracy has been entered upon between MCI and the ADC - we now have 1,000 hypothetical inmates making 5 CALLS per hour at $3.00 per call, plus 22 cents per minute. That is now a profit of $15,000 (instead of$3,000)for hook-up fees alone, plus $13,200 for 60,000 call minutes, for a total of $28,200. Give 20% to the ADC ($5,640.00), and that leaves $22,560 for MCI - which meansthat MCI will make $6,360 MORE per hour on inmates' calls - even AFTER giving the ADC 20% -- than the $16,200 that MCI would have profited had it not given the ADC a cut, and had the ADC not agreed to limit calls to 10 minutes. That's more than a 40 percent increase in profits to MCI - simply by way of the ADC's policy!! AND the ADC makes ONE THIRD as much as MCI would have made had it not conspired with the ADC to CONTRIVE a reason for limiting inmates' calls to 10 minutes!

In my opinion, and I feel in the opinion of any jury, THIS IS RACKETEERING and WINDFALL profit-making. In essence, the ADC - meaning the State of Arkansas - is being PAID FOR MAKING A PRISON POLICY whose ONLY PURPOSE IS TO ALLOW the ADC to BE PAID. And, THIS IS THE REASON WHY MCI GIVES SO MUCH MONEY TO THE ADC, AND WHY THE CONSPIRACY EXISTS TO THESE ENDS.

After it is recognized WHY a call limit policy was implemented in the first place, it is then possible to demonstrate that any such policy IS IN FACT wholly contrived, simply by comparing how many prisoners have access to how many MCI phones for how many potential call minutes per day, week, month, or year - both on local prison units, or within the entire prison system. When the math is done there, it is much easier to conclude that it indeed is all a matter of conspiracy, plain and simple. But, I'll do that math a little later in this article

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