Rates on some inmate payphone calls from Wash. state jails and pr...
Rates on some inmate payphone calls from Wash. state jails and prisons will drop sharply under a new Corrections Dept. deal with Chicago-based FSH Communications. The pact replaces an expiring state inmate payphone contract with AT&T that priced intrastate…
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long distance calls at $1.10 a minute. The FSH contract sets an in-state long distance rate equal to about 17 a minute on a typical, 20-minute call. The deal, to take effect in the summer, prices an intrastate interexchange call at a flat $3.15 paid from inmate debit account or $3.50 collect. Local calls will cost what intrastate long distance calls do. Under the AT&T contract, a local call was $2. The new deal doesn’t change rates for out-of-state long distance, which will stay $4.95 the first minute and 89 a minute after. The new contract guarantees the state $5.1 million yearly in payphone commissions. The AT&T deal had a 40% commission on revenue, which in the 2004- 05 fiscal year yielded $3.8 million for the Corrections Dept. to spend on unfunded inmate needs. Inmates’ families long have complained that Wash. tied Ariz. for the nation’s highest inmate phone rates, harming inmates and their families.