Hey, here’s one for Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman and other hopefuls for Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s job in Austin, stepping stone to the White House. They can ask Perry what’s the story with the rise of mobile phones as the contraband of choice in Texas state prisons.
That’s right. The Dallas Morning News and The Associated Press reported all about the problem this past spring, noting the $350 to $600 prisoners are willing to pay—sometimes to corruption officers—for mobile phones that prison officials fear are being used to plan jail breaks and pursue criminal activity. In fact, the cell-phone market for those thrown in the clink is downright sophisticated. It’s just not about the phones themselves. There’s the sale of minutes among inmates.
Just how much value do prisoners put on cell phones? According to the AP, an arrested corrections officer had planned to smuggle a cell phone and heroin to a prisoner. The price tag for the phone: $200. Fifty bucks for the drugs.
“It’s just like American Express—it’s good as cash,” said John Moriarty, Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s inspector general. Don’t leave prison without it.
The Texas prison cell-phone phenomenon seems driven in part by pure economic forces beyond those involved in the prison secondary wireless market. For example, I read where the New York Supreme Court will hear a suit challenging the cost of collect calls of New York state prisoners levied by Verizon/MCI. Verizon/MCI apparently is doing what its state contract allows: charging inmates’ family members $3 per call and 16 cents per minute for collect calls from inmates. That is supposedly more than 600-percent higher than the normal rate for collect calls. The New York State Department of Correctional Services reportedly defends the rate structure on the basis of pricey extensive monitoring of prison calls. Seems like with its scope and scale, the National Security Agency could do it cheaper. And the NSA doesn’t have to answer to anyone other than a former Texas governor.
Texas state prisons have no phone service for inmates, although at least one cell-phone carrier tried to get a piece of the action by offering victims a cut of profits if it was allowed to do business with the Texas prison system. So you can understand the attractiveness of cell phones among prisoners in Texas.
Don’t forget the cell-phone weapon factor in prisons, either. Supermodel Naomi Campbell is again accused of sending a wireless device airborne in the direction of another. This time a Blackberry allegedly hit a human target and later the same victim got unsolicited face time with a flying cell phone. Sounds like we’re talking uncivil battery here.
