{"id":9427,"date":"2020-02-07T10:34:40","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T15:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=9427"},"modified":"2020-02-07T13:46:36","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T18:46:36","slug":"bestpractices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2020\/02\/07\/bestpractices\/","title":{"rendered":"Our new &#8220;best practices&#8221; guides show counties how to strike fairer contracts for jail services"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>#body-content div.footnotes ol li, #body-content div.footnotes ol li p {font-size:14px; line-height: 20px; margin-top:0; }<\/style>\n<p>The average cost of a phone call from a Texas county jail is 44 cents per minute<sup id=\"fnref:1\"><a href=\"#fn:1\">1<\/a><\/sup> &mdash; which can add up to hundreds of dollars a month for families trying to stay in touch &mdash; but Dallas County may soon lower its rates to 1 cent per minute. How? The county is <b>aggressively renegotiating its contract<\/b> with jail phone provider Securus, prioritizing <b>getting the lowest rate possible<\/b> for the families making the calls.<\/p>\n<p>For other counties wondering how to negotiate contracts that treat consumers more fairly, we&#8217;ve just published <b>three &#8220;best practices&#8221; guides.<\/b> Our three guides cover the three most common types of telecommunications contracts in jails: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/rfp_guidance.html\">contracts for phone services<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/visitation\/rfp_guidance.html\">contracts for video calling technology<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/messaging\/rfp_guidance.html\">contracts for electronic tablets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><b>The simplest and best policy<\/b> for a county is to pay for these services out of its general fund, thus making communication free. (Otherwise, personal wealth determines which families can stay in touch and which families can&#8217;t.)<\/p>\n<p><b>For counties that won&#8217;t go that far, though,<\/b> it&#8217;s still possible to write a jail contract that holds the vendor accountable, and allows families to stay in touch without paying dearly. Our best practices guides show how smart agencies can:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list\">\n<li>Get the lowest rates possible for families by refusing commissions<\/li>\n<li>Protect customers from predatory fees, such as unnecessary &#8220;account maintenance&#8221; fees or high deposit fees.<\/li>\n<li>Make sure that vendors return customers&#8217; unspent funds<\/li>\n<li>Ensure that expensive technology is never used to &#8220;replace&#8221; vital (and free) existing services<\/li>\n<li>Avoid excluding good providers from the bidding process by accident<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>During the contract award process, county procurement officials are often outmatched by their counterparts in the jail telecom industry &mdash; highly experienced businesspeople intent on maximizing their returns. Because of this imbalance, <b>far too many poor families end up paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a month<\/b> to stay in touch. But county governments that do their homework can get families a fairer deal.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more, see our new best practices guides about:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/rfp_guidance.html\">Phone services<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/visitation\/rfp_guidance.html\">Video calling technology<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/messaging\/rfp_guidance.html\">Electronic tablets<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And if you are new to these issues, see our research and advocacy about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/\">phone services in prisons and jails<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/visitation\/\">protecting in-person visits from the video calling industry<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/messaging\/\">exploitation on prison tablets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"center\">Footnotes<\/h2>\n<div class=\"footnotes\">\n<ol class=\"list\">\n<li class=\"footnote\" id=\"fn:1\">\n<p>Our survey of jail phone rates in 2018 found that the average cost of a phone call in Texas county jails was $6.53 for a 15-minute call, or approximately 44 cents per minute. For the complete results of our survey, see Appendix 2 in our report <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/state_of_phone_justice.html\"><i>State of Phone Justice<\/i>.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most &#8220;consumers&#8221; of telecom services in jails are families in poverty. Counties can and should negotiate contracts that treat them more fairly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[53],"class_list":["post-9427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9427"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9438,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427\/revisions\/9438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9427"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}