CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Lawsuit targets high cost of phone calls from jail

The Standard Times - 5/5/2018

May 05--In the days before her fiance's suicide in jail, Fall River mental health clinician Kellie Pearson argued with him over the cost of his phone calls home.

"For Michael, I think that just put more pressure on him and made him feel worse," she said.

Michael T. Ray was a big part of her life and their teenage daughter's life, but the calls from the Bristol County House of Correction, at rates set by a jail contract, were a financial burden.

Now Pearson and three other plaintiffs are suing Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson and the telephone contractor, Texas-based Securus Technologies, alleging that the company's payments to Hodgson's office constitute "illegal kickbacks" and have nearly doubled the cost of inmate calls.

Hodgson counters that such contracts are commonplace and approved by the state.

The lawsuit filed May 2 in Suffolk Superior Court says that to secure an exclusive contract for inmate telephone service, Securus agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per year and recovered the cost by charging grossly inflated rates.

Securus charges consumers $3.16 for the first minute and 16 cents for each additional minute, amounting to $4.60 for a ten-minute call, according to Brian Highsmith, a staff attorney for the National Consumer Law Center. In contrast, Massachusetts state prisons offer phone calls for 10 cents per minute, with no connection fee -- meaning the same ten-minute phone call would cost $1.

The class-action suit was brought by the National Consumer Law Center, Prisoners' Legal Services of Massachusetts, the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, and Bailey & Glasser LLP.

A multitude of factors contributed to Ray's suicide in June, Pearson said. But the price of calls was a particular stressor because the money she put in his account was constantly running out, and when calls got dropped, he was charged the $3.16 again.

Their daughter was a track athlete, and she wanted to tell her father about how it was going, but he would sometimes have to stop her.

"He would say, 'put your mother on the phone,'" she said.

Ray was awaiting trial, charged with armed robbery, according to Highsmith.

Hodgson said his office received more than $1 million from 2011 to 2013 and kept $300,000 per year -- $900,000 -- after the cost of providing the phone service. He said the money pays for educational programs and information technology support.

State law does not allow sheriffs to charge inmates directly for phone service, which is part of why they seek revenue in this way, Highsmith said.

The contract called for Hodgson's office to receive 48 percent of gross phone charges each month -- a figure on which both sides agree.

But Hodgson said the term "kickbacks" is misleading and the lawsuit frivolous.

Securus Technologies did not respond to calls seeking comment Friday afternoon.

Among the other plaintiffs are two inmates, Roger Burrell and Brian Givens. The suit says Burrell has a medical condition that prevents him from writing letters to his 95-year-old mother and disabled sister, who lives more than 100 miles away and cannot easily travel to visit him.

The fourth plaintiff is the Law Offices of Mark Booker, a criminal defense law firm in Boston that receives and pays for phone calls from incarcerated clients.

Lizz Matos, a staff attorney at Prisoners' Legal Services, said they were able to file the lawsuit now because about 18 months ago, the phone provider wrote to the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable to exempt itself from regulation on the basis of being an Internet Protocol-enabled phone service. As an unregulated company, it can be sued, she said.

Advocates acknowledge that the payments are common in the industry.

Jail phone contracts been the subject of criticism for years. In October of 2015, Attorney General Maura Healey wrote to Federal Communications Commission Secretary Marlene H. Dortch, urging the FCC to approve caps on the rates for inmate calls. She also said she wants to discourage the payments companies make to jails and find alternative sources of program funds.

"It is time we remove this heavy burden on family members, who shoulder the expense, often while struggling to lead a household," Healey wrote. "This is also a matter of public safety; studies have shown that allowing people who are incarcerated to maintain contact with their loved ones results in better post-release outcomes and reduces recidivism."

For his part, Hodgson said inmate advocates seem to take a strong interest in Bristol County, "possibly because I'm far more conservative in my views than they are."

___

(c)2018 The Standard-Times, New Bedford, Mass.

Visit The Standard-Times, New Bedford, Mass. at www.southcoasttoday.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.