The U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) released a report last month on the Federal Bureau Of Prisons mounting overcrowding issues entitled, “Growing Inmate Crowding Negatively Affects Inmates, Staff, and Infrastructure.”

The GAO report excerpts below demonstrate how the introduction of our solution can increase telephone access, reduce prisoner movement while improving morale, and offset the loss or reduction of family visits:

Telephone Access

“The larger number of inmates also limits inmate access to the telephone to call home and computer to e-mail family members and other contacts. For example, at one facility we visited, each housing unit had three telephones for about 156 inmates.”

Clearly the deployment of secure prison cell phones would significantly improve the 1.2% telephone-to-prisoner ratio at this housing unit as well increase call access throughout the overcrowded BOP system.

Prisoner Movement

“BOP has implemented controlled movement for inmates, which is a practice that officials from one of the five states we reviewed also reported using, specifically to deal with crowded conditions. For example, because of crowded conditions, one way that BOP restricts inmates’ movement in high and medium security facilities is by instituting earlier in-cell hours at night for inmates.”

In many cases, prisoner movement is required to allow the detainee access to the wall phones. With a secure prison cell phone, no movement is needed and those detainees who are restricted to their cells for longer hours can now use that time communicating with family and loved ones. This will help reduce frustration with the longer in-cell time.

Visitation

“Crowded visiting rooms make it more difficult for inmates to visit with their families. BOP headquarters officials said the quality of the interaction between an inmate and family can positively affect an inmate’s behavior in prison and aids an inmate’s success when returning to the community. Each BOP facility has visiting space to accommodate the number of inmates that the facility was designed to house and a visitor capacity to enable staff to manage the visitation process. The infrastructure of the facility may not support the increase in visitors as a result of the growth in the prison population. Further, with more inmates, the visitation process requires more staff resources…Limited visiting capacity and the larger numbers of inmates can lead to frustrations for inmates and visitors, such as when visits are shorter or visitors are turned away because there are too many visitors on a particular day.”

Reduced visitation time can be offset with expanded telephone time via a secure prison cell phone. These phones are essentially “wireless prison payphones™”, with all the monitoring, recording an forensic capabilities of the wall phones.

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An article discussing a New Zealand prison’s plans to install landlines in each prisoner’s cell, similar to what has been done in two British prisons. The reason it is being considered is because, according to the article, “Evidence shows that prisoners are less likely to re-offend if they keep in touch with their families and have good family support when they are released.” Wouldn’t a secure prison cell phone service like meshDETECT be a simpler and more cost effective way to give the prisoners access to telephone services in their cells?

Corrections Minister Judith Collins says she would have concerns about prisoners talking to their criminal mates if there were landline phones in prison cells.

Landlines are installed in the cells of two private prisons in Britain operated by British company Serco, which will run the controversial new Mt Eden Corrections Facility in Auckland from August 1.

The Mt Eden facility has phones in communal areas, but there are currently no plans for them to be installed in cells.

Ms Collins today said she would have a few issues with phones in every cell.

”The first would be that they obviously wouldn’t want to be having prisoners talking to criminal mates every night. That wouldn’t be acceptable and quite clearly any phone calls on landlines would have to monitored, and scrupulously so, as they are now.

”I’d want to also be reassured that this would assist rehabilitations.”

Ms Collins said prisoners already had access to landline phones, as required by the UN treaties New Zealand has signed.

Asked if she would say no to phones in prison cells, Ms Collins said she would want any phone lines to be scrupulously monitored.

”Public safety has to come first … I’d expect to see some very compelling evidence that it assisted rehabilitations before I’d even think about it,” she said.

Serco spokesman Paul Shaw said the communal phones at Mt Eden prison could be accessed throughout the hours prisoners were unlocked – when they were not in their cells, or in work or training. Prisoners paid for calls by purchasing phonecards.

”The phones use a system which allows prisoners to ring certain pre-approved numbers, and calls can be monitored for security purposes,” he said.

Serco believed it was important for prisoners to maintain contact with their families, he said.

”Evidence shows that prisoners are less likely to re-offend if they keep in touch with their families and have good family support when they are released.”

Having landlines in communal areas was consistent with other New Zealand prisons and the majority of prisons Serco operated across the world, including two in Australia.

The Mt Eden prison is the first since 2005 to be managed by a private sector contractor.

Opposition parties have consistently condemned the move and concerns have been raised about problems at overseas prisons run by Serco.

International reports have linked some Serco prisons with violence, overcrowding and poor health care.

Source

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