This editorial on impact of budget problems in the State of South Carolina on the prison system highlights the resulting lack of resources. We have written about the search for new sources of revenue by prison systems around the country.

It has been shown that one of the key factors in recidivism reduction is frequent contact with family and loved ones. One means of doing so, and raising additional funds, is to provide increased access to telecommunications services between visits. The meshDETECT secure prison cell phone solution addresses this opportunity. By providing each prisoner with a secure cell phone, more and higher quality phone contact will result and recidivism will be reduced.

Public safety is a fundamental responsibility of state government, and that includes the safe operation of the state prison system. Unfortunately, South Carolina is falling down on the job, as a Post and Courier news investigation published Sunday and Monday made all too clear.

Mainly, the problem is caused by a lack of resources from the state Legislature. Without adequate funding for corrections officers, the state isn’t able to attract the best candidates for those demanding and dangerous jobs. It isn’t able to provide them with all the training they need. And it isn’t able to retain those officers.

Currently, one-third of the state’s prison guards leave the Corrections Department each year — one of the highest turnover rates in the nation. Small wonder, with a starting salary of $24,300 and difficult working conditions.

The lack of funding has resulted in inadequate staffing levels — the vacancy rate for corrections officer slots is 15 percent. Our report cited one guard who told of being solely responsible for more than 100 inmates on the night shift.

The lack of staffing is largely responsible for the high rate of prisoner assaults on guards — twice the average rate in the Southeast.

Meanwhile, there isn’t adequate funding for education and rehabilitation programs for inmates. That’s particularly unfortunate at present, with a proven reformer as director of the Corrections Department.

Former Judge William Byars was able to reduce recidivism by 40 percent at the Department of Juvenile Justice through a combination of education, job training and counseling services, as well as alternatives to incarceration.

Some of Corrections’ recent budget problems can be blamed on the economic downturn that generally forced cuts throughout state government over the last 3½ years. But the department was already getting short shrift from the Legislature before the recession hit.

Former Corrections Director Jon Ozmint dealt with the financial constraints through a range of economies during his eight years on the job. He cut administrative duplication and stretched resources for prisoner education and food production to the limit. When Mr. Ozmint left as head of the prison system in early 2011, the state’s daily cost of feeding inmates was the lowest in the nation, at $1.51 per prisoner.

The prison system, however, has limited flexibility on the budget front. It has to take the prisoners sent to it by the courts, and has to make do with the money allocated by the Legislature. In the 2010-11 fiscal year, the department was forced to run a $27 million deficit. It wasn’t the result of budget extravagance.

The Legislature’s reluctance to give the Corrections Department adequate funding isn’t hard to explain. Legislators like to appear tough on crime, and that translates into being tough on those who have been sent to prison. Moreover, there isn’t a major constituency for those who have been incarcerated. Certainly inmates don’t vote.

But there is a major constituency for public safety that includes every resident and taxpayer of the state. Public safety requires that prisons are adequately staffed and that corrections officers make a decent wage.

It means that inmates should have meaningful educational and other rehabilitation opportunities. The large number who enter prison with serious substance abuse problems should get the necessary treatment.

After all, most of those who are doing prison time eventually will be released. Rehabilitation can help prepare inmates for useful employment in the working world. Reducing recidivism improves public safety and cuts prison costs over the long term.

Another essential reform can only occur with the help of the Federal Communications Commission, which has the authority to approve blocking technology for cell phone use in prisons. A valuable contraband, cell phones are used for criminal enterprises by inmates.

At the state level, the Legislature needs to give the Corrections Department the budget support it needs to sustain itself. The state’s improving revenue outlook should encourage the prospect.

This year, however, the House-approved budget now before the Senate is roughly the same as last year. And a department spokesman reports that funding from the federal government and other sources, including prison industries, will be about $2.5 million less next fiscal year.

The Senate could improve the department’s budget prospects by agency reorganization. Senate Corrections Committee Chairman Mike Fair, R-Greenville, says merging the Department of Probation, Pardon and Parole Services with the Corrections Department would streamline operations and result in administrative savings.

At last estimate, the savings would be $5.8 million a year. That’s not enough to solve the budget problems of the Corrections Department, but it’s a start.

At least it would demonstrate that the Legislature is aware of the problems the agency faces, and is committed to make the necessary improvements in security and for its fiscal well-being.

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This editorial on the increase in prisoner call rates in Michigan in order to fund jammers to block smuggled contraband cell phones contains some interesting statistics. Michigan’s 44,000 prisoners make 13 million phone calls — nearly 300 per inmate. It also points out that prisoners cannot receive incoming calls. With the meshDETECT secure cell phone service, they are able to receive calls from loved ones, while reducing the contraband value of smuggled cell phones.

The Michigan Department of Corrections is trying to lighten its budget problems by putting them on the backs of prisoners and their families. By nearly doubling prisoner phone rates, the department will collect an estimated $8 million a year for a special equipment fund. Another $3 million will go to the phone company as an administrative fee for collecting the money. Talk about easy money.

A five-year contract with Public Communications Services, effective July 1, increased phone rates for Michigan prisoners from 10 cents to 18 cents a minute for prepaid debit calls, and from 12 cents to 20 cents a minute for collect calls. Bottom line: The contract collects about 14 cents a minute per call — adding up to $11 million a year — for a special equipment fund that has nothing to do with the cost of providing telephone service.

Without special equipment charges, base telephone rates would drop to about 4 cents a minute — which is what inmates should pay. The special equipment fund was set up to pay for telephone-related security equipment, such as phone monitoring and cell phone detection. Now, however, prison officials say the department can tap the special equipment fund for practically any security-related expense — a move that would possibly violate state law, or at least legislative intent.

The contract is a sweet deal for the phone company — and the department — but not for Michigan’s nearly 44,000 inmates, who rely on phone calls to stay connected to spouses, children, other family members and friends. Organizers canceled a planned week-long phone boycott, but prisoners and their families are still steamed about the rates.

“They’re killing us,” said Darryl Woods, 39, an inmate at Ryan Correctional Facility in Detroit. Woods told me this week that higher rates have cut phone calls among fellow prisoners in half.

With fewer visiting days, high gas prices and the remote location of many prisons, phone calls are especially important for keeping families together.

Corrections is collecting data on prisoner phone use before and after the rates went up. Last year, Michigan prisoners made 13 million phone calls — nearly 300 per inmate.

Inmates typically earn less than $1 a day at prison jobs. Most of the money for phone calls comes from families, either directly when inmates call collect or indirectly though prepaid debit calls. Prisoners in Michigan’s 32 prisons can’t get incoming calls; outgoing calls are monitored. Calls cannot exceed 15 minutes.

Even with the recent hike, Michigan’s prisoner phone rates are lower than those in surrounding states, said Russ Marlan, administrator of MDOC’s executive bureau. “We understand any increase will be unpopular, but we think these new rates are fair and appropriate,” he told me this week. “It’s appropriate that they (inmates) pay for some equipment that will keep them and our staff safe.”

It’s unclear how big a problem cell phones pose for prison officials, though a bill pending in the Legislature would make possessing unauthorized cell phones in prison a felony. At least 20 contraband cell phones were found in Michigan prisons last year, Marlan said.

Corrections is considering using the special equipment fund to purchase a variety of security-related equipment, including radios, security cameras and personal protection devices. Still, using the fund to plug holes in the prison budget is not what legislators had in mind.

Since 2008, Corrections appropriations bills have included boilerplate that requires the department to keep prisoner phone rates comparable to those on the outside. It also provides for special equipment costs, but legislators like Rep. Joe Haveman, R-Holland, intended those for cell phone detection or other phone-related security equipment.

“I have some concerns about it,” said Haveman, chairman of the subcommittee on corrections appropriations. “… There’s a benefit to prisoners having access to their families.”

Haveman told me this week he would monitor how Corrections spends the money.

Excessive phone fees not only unfairly burden low-income families but also undermine the re-entry and rehabilitation efforts trumpeted by the department. Taxpayers should not have to subsidize prisoner phone calls, but neither should the state make millions of dollars on the backs of some of the state’s poorest people.

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