Wabash Valley Correctional Facility and the Indiana DOC have found a way to profit from their incarcerated offenders.
When an inmate arrives at WVVCF he must turn in a phone list with the telephone numbers of family, friends, and lawyers that he wishes to call. After receiving the list, WVCF will place a "Block" on certain numbers. Here is how it goes:
When people contact WVCF about this WVCF informs them that the person's telephone company has some sort of long-distance block on that person's phone line. That person contacts their phone company and finds out that WVCF was wrong. They call Wabash again and WVCF offers the person to be billed directly from Wabash. Wabash offers to become their specific long-distance carrier for calls from WVCF. They rate may not be much different from that of a regular carrier but the cost to the facility is next to nil.
This allows the facility to play the percentages game.
When you take that percentage and multiply it by the 20K plus inmates in Indiana prisons the IN DOC is bringing in a lot of revenue by families just wanting to talk with their loved ones. How can they say that the IN DOC or the stat of Indiana is financially short of funds when these types of dirty capitalist tricks are used on unsuspecting citizens.
Personally its taken me nearly 5 months for me to able to call my mother. All the powers that be-down here said it was not her phone that was the problem. Her phone company said that WVCF was the problem. I can call home now and mom uses her phone company instead of allowing the DOC to become rich off our phone calls.
--A prisoner in Indiana, September 2002
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