A new contract approved yesterday, will shave nearly $2 off the price of 15-minute collect calls from inmates in Arkansas prisons. The Arkansas Board of Correction voted to lower the phone rates by 27 percent after facing a storm of criticism for a contract it approved in November that would have kept Arkansas’s prison phone rates among the highest in the nation. (See earlier article at this site.) Under the new contract, the amount the state takes from fees on every call will fall from 55 to 45 percent. Prison officials said the new rate could begin by Feb. 17. Collect calls from inmates will cost $4.80 per 15 minutes, a 27 percent reduction from current rates. The state’s share of the expected $4 million in revenue will fall from 55 percent to 45 percent.
Members of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants [CURE], an inmate advocate group, had argued that the rate imposes an unfair tax on families, lawyers and friends of inmates. Prison director Larry Norris (shown above) said the board’s change of heart came after two legislators—Sen. Irma Hunter Brown, D-Little Rock, and Rep. Sharon Dobbins, D- North Little Rock—got involved. “We listened to them and decided it would be in our best interest to compromise and change the rate — give some relief to the inmates’ families,” Norris said. Dobbins told a reporter that credit for the change “needs to go to the people.” She said the high cost of keeping in touch with family members in prison was “a concern” to many of her constituents.
CURE member Jean Thrash, who attended the board’s meeting, said a coalition of groups had drafted a bill that sought more sweeping change. A draft bill has been circulated in the legislature by CURE, the Arkansas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Arkansas Voices for the Children Left Behind Inc. and Baptist organizations would have eliminated the state’s commission on inmate calls entirely and required prison officials to allow inmates to use debit cards. After the meeting, Thrash said she hoped phone costs would go even lower, but that, for the moment, “this is such a relief for the families.”
