KIDS URGE CHEAPER CALLS BETWEEN PRISONERS, FAMILIES.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Sparked by a nun's visit, schoolchildren have started a letter-writing campaign to lower the cost for California inmates to phone their families at home.

State prisoners are allowed to make collect calls only. Critics say the calls are unaffordable for many children whose mothers or fathers are in state facilities.

``(Some) children didn't talk to their mothers because the phone bills were $8 to $10 for 10 minutes,'' said Sister Suzanne Jabro, director of the nonprofit Women and Criminal Justice program for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Critics say the costs would be lower if prisoners were allowed to use discount calling cards or if the state wasn't paid $26 million a year by the company that provides phones in state prisons.

``We don't think it's fair that the prisons are making money off the families of children who need their (parents') love and attention,'' said Sara Diaz, 12, of Sherman Oaks, a sixth-grader at St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catholic Elementary School in Encino, one of the schools where students have joined the campaign.

``These are people who can't afford to pay these bills, and they are expected to pay more than us.''

Sara and other students at Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles began writing letters to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after the campaign started recently in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Sister Teresa Lynch's sixth-grade students at St. John Fisher School first heard about the problem while helping children in the ``Get on the Bus'' program, which is raising money to take 20 bus loads of children to see their mothers in prison on the Friday before Mother's Day.

In a letter sent April 15 to Lynch, state Department of Corrections Deputy Director George A. Sifuentes wrote that a new contract effective April 1 with MCI reduces the collect call charges by 20 percent for nearly three-quarters of the calls inmates make.

Officials said the $26 million annual payment from MCI helps the state defray its costs for security measures, including monitoring and restrictions on calls so inmates can't contact their victims or witnesses in their criminal cases.

Inmates are not permitted to have calling cards to avoid problems with bartering inside California's prisons, according to correctional officials.

A long distance collect call from an inmate has a surcharge ranging from $1.50 to $3.95, in addition to a cost of 15 cents to 89 cents for each minute, MCI spokeswoman Natasha Haubold said.

That's double to triple the price of a regular phone call, according to officials with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, whose leader, Cardinal Roger Mahony, endorsed the children's effort.

The MCI spokeswoman said comparing inmates' collect calls to regular phone calls is not a ``fair comparison,'' in part because of the state's security measures.

Haubold noted that someone making a collect call outside of prison pays significantly more money with surcharges ranging from $4.98 to $8.49 and per-minute charges of 49 cents to $1.15.

Nuns involved in the children's campaign say about 80 percent of children whose mothers are in prison live with grandparents and other relatives who are below the poverty line and cannot afford high charges for collect calls.

``I've had to go to work part time because I can't afford the telephone bills,'' said Angela Nunez, 69, of Santa Monica, a retiree who supports her 15-year-old grandson on $1,282 a month from Social Security and other benefits. Her phone bills range up $160 a month.

J.P. Tremblay, spokesman for the California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, said state officials know that it's important for prisoners to keep in touch with their families. Studies have shown it helps reduce recidivism.

``But always what we are doing has to be tempered in what is best in terms of public safety,'' Tremblay said.

Troy Anderson, [phone]

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Mike Muir, a sixth-grade teacher at Cyril of Jerusalem Catholic Elementary School, shows one of the many letters written by his students to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, urging him to fight high collect call charges for state inmates.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer