`A Stickup Without a Gun'.

Chicago

Judging by Katie Arsberry's phone bill, you'd think she was getting collect calls from Australia. But the collect calls she accepts twice each week are from her husband, Lonnie, who lives about forty miles away, at the Stateville prison in Joliet. Arsberry's long distance charges average about $200 a month.

Arsberry is a plaintiff in a class action suit filed earlier this year against the corrections departments of Illinois and Cook County. The suit accuses her carrier, Ameritech Services, as well as AT&T, MCI, and Consolidated, of taking advantage of prisoners and their families through exclusive contracts. "Rates charged to a person accepting a collect call from an inmate are ... well in excess of rates available to the public for like services or fees assessed for collect calls under other circumstances," charges the lawsuit. "Plaintiffs are also subject to excessive surcharges or connection fees."

Since prisoners can make telephone calls only by dialing collect, the long distance companies have a captive market. Phone company income from prisoner collect calls in Illinois averages more than $15 million annually.

"It's a stickup without a gun," Arsberry says. "They know you're in a situation where you're going to do it. You've got your husband or your son or your daughter calling and you're not going to say `I won't accept the charges.'"

AT&T, MCI, and Consolidated all refused to comment due to pending litigation. Calls to spokespersons for the state and county also were not returned.

This gouging is going on across the country. In Michigan, phone companies add surcharges of up to $3.00 on collect calls from prisons. Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants, along with the American Friends Service Committee, are coordinating the Campaign to End the Michigan Prison Telephone Tax.

"Sometimes people don't think of family members of prisoners as citizens," says Kay Perry, director of the Michigan office of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants.

Other states are also cracking down.

In Kentucky, the Public Service Commission recently told long distance carriers not to charge more for inmate calls than they do for collect calls made by others.

And in Illinois, the Prison Action Committee and the Prison Phone Project of the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown are campaigning to establish a rate of ten cents per minute for collect calls from prison. "Anybody who examines this body of evidence before us could see that this is wrong," says Ra Chaka, an organizer for the Prison Action Committee and a former prisoner. "You can call halfway around the world for ten cents a minute."

For more information, in Illinois contact Carlos Vega or Ra Chaka of the Prison Action Committee at [phone] or call the Prison Phone Project of the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown at [phone]. In Michigan, contact the American Friends Service Committee at [phone].