{"id":12537,"date":"2021-09-10T10:39:04","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T14:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=12537"},"modified":"2021-10-12T15:16:50","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T19:16:50","slug":"wisconsin-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/10\/wisconsin-phones\/","title":{"rendered":"New data: Wisconsin jails and telecom giants profiting from high phone rates that keep families apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

As people in jail and their families struggle to stay connected during the pandemic, we’ve collected the data<\/a> on the exploitative prices families are forced to pay in Wisconsin for phone calls with incarcerated loved ones. This data already sparked an investigative report<\/a> last month in the Appleton Post-Crescent.<\/i><\/p>\n

People in jail in Wisconsin are charged different rates for phone calls depending on where they are locked up. In some jails, rates are as high as $14.77 for a 15-minute call–nearly a dollar a minute. The revenue fills the coffers of jails and of their corporate partners (who actually provide the phone service), Post-Crescent<\/i> reporter Chris Mueller explains:<\/p>\n

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Brown County, for example, gets 54% of the revenue from phone calls made at its jail, totaling about $34,800 in January, about $32,000 in February and about $42,200 in March.<\/p>\n

Other counties get a larger share of the money. Chippewa County, for example, gets 76%, totaling about $2,600 in December, about $3,100 in January and about $2,600 in February. Barron County gets 82%, amounting to about $2,400 in December, about $1,400 in January and about $1,700 in February.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, the people who pay are low-income, working-class Wisconsin residents:<\/p>\n

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“I don’t know anyone who has an incarcerated loved one who doesn’t work more than one job,” said [Peggy] West-Schroder.<\/p>\n

West-Schroder would typically spend at least $20 a week on phone calls, though that amount would vary if her husband was transferred to a different facility or, for whatever reason, had limited access to the phone.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

TMJ4, a Milwaukee news station, recently ran another powerful story<\/a> about the consequences of making jail phone calls expensive. The story focuses on a woman named Ouida Lock, who has two sons in prison, and was forced to spend nearly $6,000 on phone calls over eight years. As Lock says in the story: “I can’t even fathom how much money has been spent. I know I could have bought a house by now.”<\/p>\n