At a glance
A handful of family members of Michigan prison inmates protested Tuesday in downtown Lansing over rate hikes for inmate phone calls. Department of Corrections officials said that effective July 1, rates went up 8 cents a minute for calls, or between 66 percent and 80 percent higher depending on whether the inmate is placing a collect call or whether it's a prepaid account call. The money generated from the higher rates is intended to purchase equipment to detect illegal cell phone usage and enhance security.
For her son, it's his lifeline to the outside world, she says. He is serving a three-year sentence in a Michigan prison for robbery. "I think it helps him," Brooks, a West Bloomfield resident, said of the phone calls. "It's therapeutic for him."
For Brooks, though, that daily lifeline has become more costly. She was among a handful of relatives of Michigan inmates who picketed Tuesday in downtown Lansing to protest a steep rate increase charged for phone calls involving prison inmates.
Family members, who were protesting outside the Michigan Department of Corrections headquarters at 206 E. Michigan Ave., said the rate hike amounts to price gouging.
Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said that effective July 1, rates went up 8 cents a minute for calls, or between 66 percent and 80 percent higher depending on whether the inmate is placing a collect call or whether it's a prepaid account call. Most local calls increased from 12 cents per minute to 20 cents per minute.
Marlan said the change, part of an agreement with a newly contracted carrier, Public Communications Services, is intended to generate $8 million annually for a state fund. The money would purchase equipment at each of its 32 prisons to detect illegal cell phone usage by inmates.
"Because we don't have a mechanism for detecting (illegal cell phone usage) now, we don't know how big of a problem it is," Marlan said.
Carrying a picket sign outside the Department of Corrections headquarters, Cathryn Bachus of Holland complained about the higher rates, saying special equipment should be funded by the department's operating budget and not by inmate families.
"It was underhanded," she said of the hike. "There was no explanation."
She said she previously spoke twice daily to her longtime boyfriend, who has served more than 20 years in prison for a second-degree murder conviction. Now, she said, the higher rates are forcing her to cut back on her calls.
Marlan, however, said Michigan's inmate phone rates are well below neighboring states and it now offers the 11th-lowest inmate rate among all 50 states. He said Illinois prisons charge 40 cents a minute, and Indiana charges 35 cents a minute.
He said the department now is reassessing the rate to see how much revenue is needed to purchase the equipment, and may slightly lower the rate in coming months.