SPITZER'S CALL THE RIGHT ONE

In the end, all it took was the word of the governor to get rid of a
prison phone system that exploited the families of prison inmates.

That's what Eliot Spitzer did on his eighth day in office. After
years of public protests, intense lobbying in Albany, marches to the
office of former Gov. George Pataki, introducing bills that went
nowhere and a lawsuit that is still wending its way through the state
courts, the governor took decisive action. He announced last week
that he was directing the state's budget division to no longer count
on the $16 million in yearly commissions it has been receiving out of
the phone company's excessive profits.

"It was a no-brainer," said Cheri O'Donaghue, who with her husband
has been paying $300 to $400 a month to receive collect phone calls
from their son, who's incarcerated at the Woodbourne Correctional
Facility in upstate Sullivan County.

"It was just a matter of having someone who had some compassion and
who would just do it and, thankfully, we have a new administration
that feels that way," she said.

The end of the 10-year contract - under which the phone company paid
57 percent of its profits to the state Department of Correction -
means that as of April 1, the cost of a 20-minute collect phone call
from a state prison inmate to his family or loved ones will be cut in
half, from about $6.20 to about $3.

"The governor's position is that the state shouldn't be receiving a
commission on services that it offers," his spokesman told me.

For the last seven years, I've been writing about this oppressive
phone system that was part of a monopoly agreement with MCI, which is
now known as Verizon Business. The company charged regular phone
users about 3 to 5 cents a minute, but charged state prison inmates a
$3 connection fee and 16 cents a minute. They were also required to
make collect calls only. Now the state will have to replace the money
from the phone commissions with general funds.

"I'm elated and relieved," said O'Donaghue, a magazine editor whose
son is serving a 7- to 21-year sentence under the Rockefeller drug
laws for the attempted sale of cocaine to an undercover officer.

State correction officials rationalized the phone system's expense
because the phone company commission went to pay for family and
inmate services, such as nurseries for women in prison, medical
treatment for inmates with AIDS and family reunification programs,
and claimed it also paid for the extra security costs of maintaining
a prison phone system.

But the burden of paying for these prison services fell not on the
correction department, but the inmates' families. And few people
seemed to care.

It was as if, "Well, it's just prisoners, so make their families pay."

Nor did the costs of securing the prison phone calls justify the
charges. The federal prison system gives inmates access to calls for
about 7 cents a minute. City detainees on Rikers Island use a debit
system, whereby the cost of phone calls is deducted from their
commissary accounts. Both systems are much cheaper than New York State's.

Annette Dickerson, who coordinated the Campaign for Telephone Justice
for the Center for Constitutional rights, said she was pleased by
Spitzer's actions. Several years ago, the center filed a lawsuit in
state court, challenging the phone system on behalf of the 65,000
state prison inmates. Last week, the state Court of Appeals heard
oral arguments in an appeal of a lower court's dismissal of the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, bills introduced in the State Legislature to abolish the
commission system passed the Assembly for two years straight, but
died in the Senate, primarily because the legislators didn't want to
have to come up with money to replace the phone company funds.

Assemb. Jeffrion Aubrey (D-Corona), who sponsored the assembly bills,
said he was delighted when he was summoned to the governor's office
on Tuesday and given the news. The chairman of the assembly
correction committee, Aubrion told me he'd also like to see the state
improve its treatment of mentally ill inmates, many of whom are held
in 23-hour-a-day lockdown with few mental health services. And
further reforms are needed to the still-onerous Rockefeller drug laws.

But ending the injustice of the prison phone system was an auspicious
start for the new governor.