myarticlelinker.com

Texas prison inmates are making routine phone calls for the first time.

The Texas prison board was told Friday the first of a planned systemwide program of telephone service to be available to most inmates began working this week at the Henley State Jail in Dayton, east of Houston. The system is being phased in this year throughout the 112 units of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the nation’s second-largest corrections agency.

Under terms of a contract with a Kansas telecommunications firm, the country’s most restrictive telephone policy for state prisoners is ending for an estimated 120,000 inmates who will be allowed up 120 minutes of prepaid and collect calls each month.

Three more prisons — Vance, in Fort Bend County; Luther, in Grimes County; and Hobby, in Falls County — are to have phone service next week and should be among 13 brought up in April.

Another 31 become active in May and the entire system should be up by the end of September, said Paul Cooper, director and general manager of corrections markets for Embarq Corp., the Overland Park, Kan.-based company that last year was awarded a seven-year contract with the Texas prison agency.

Texas is the last state to bar routine phone access for inmates. Most Texas prisoners now are allowed one five-minute collect call every 90 days, and only with a warden’s permission and only with a prison officer present to monitor the call.

The new system will allow inmates up to 15 minutes per call to friends and family on an approved list of visitors. Calls to crime victims or the victims’ families will be barred.

Inmates and their families can prepay for telephone calls at rates of about 23 cents a minute for in-state calls and 39 cents for out-of-state calls. Collect calls within Texas will be about 26 cents a minute and 43 cents for outside the state. International calls and calls to cell phone aren’t allowed.

Credit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/05/texas-inmate-phone-system_n_183260.html

Related posts:

1. INMATE TELEPHONE CALLS – JAIL CALLS This is short review a company named JAIL CALLS that lowers the price of collect calls from correctional facilities in...
2. Save On Prison Calls today- Using Jail Calls helps lower your prison collect calls costs As far as an Inmate Phone Service goes, Jail calls is the premier company for collect calls from prisons. We...
3. Jail and Prison Collect Calls- A Lower Priced Company That Cares It seems there are so many families that cannot receive phone calls from their loved ones at the correctional facilities...
4. Govs back bill to block prison cell calls A bill to allow prisons to block calls from inmates using contraband cell phones won the backing of 20 governors...
5. VOIP Internet Phone Service Business Phone System Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP (Internet Phone Service) as it is commonly known, provides a modern, high tech method...
6. Learn About the Free Reverse Cell Phone Lookup Service Free reverse cell phone lookup is a facility that is available on the internet. But is it is fact that...
7. Fastest Way to Get Information About Any Cell Phone Number A reverse cell lookup may help you to gather information of any cell phone number. Services are provided to...
8. Fastest Way to Get Information About Any Cell Phone Number A reverse cell lookup may help you to gather information of any cell phone number. Services are provided to...
9. Phone Look Up- Finding that phone number’s owner You may go easy with the unknown calls you get but if you or your wife or children get them...
10. Fastest Way to Get Information About Any Cell Phone Number A reverse cell lookup may help you to gather information of any cell phone number. Services are provided to...