WHEN JOHNNY CALLS HOME, FROM PRISON

Prisons were designed as places for the punishment and rehabilitation of
criminals, not for profit.

But in the late 1980's, as state prison populations began to swell with
inmates convicted under tough new drug laws, it dawned on administrators
that there was another way to earn income, besides making license plates
for cars. They could make money when the inmates called home.

Now, with about two million inmates behind bars in the United States and
the vast majority in state prisons and county jails, a cruelly exploitative
system has evolved in which telephone companies like MCI, AT&T and others
pay states like New York fat commissions for the privilege of charging
artificially high rates for calls made by convicts to their families and
friends.

The size of profits on such service is not known, but a staff study for the
Florida legislature at the end of 1998 concluded that the contract there
was "so lucrative" that phone companies offered commissions to the state as
high as 55 percent of the rates charged.

The Florida study found that 11 of the 12 states with the biggest prison
populations collected money that way. Only Texas, which allowed inmates
four calls a year, did not. As John Sullivan reported in The Times last
week, the New York State correctional system may get the biggest commission
of all in its MCI contract -- 60 percent. "As far as we're concerned," said
James Flateau, a spokesman for the state's correctional system, "it's a
means where inmates help to offset their cost of incarceration." In New
York, three-fourths of the money goes toward treating and keeping prisoners
with AIDS.

The problem is that it is not inmates who pay -- it is the people they
call. Only collect calls are allowed from prison, and despite the high
volume and monopoly contracts, they are saddled with surcharges and
per-minute costs that benefit the phone companies and the states. New York
projects telephone commission income of $21.5 million in this fiscal year.
Against a prison operating budget of $2.4 billion, that is tiny, but the
cost to poor inmate families can be high.

Michael Deutsch, a lawyer suing on behalf of families in Illinois, said a
15-minute in-state call there costs $22.

The Florida study found that the greatest number of families got one call a
week, that their average monthly cost was $69, and that the average inmate
family paid more than $3,000 each year to stay in touch through calls, mail
and travel.

Protests are building.

Federal lawsuits or formal administrative complaints have been filed in New
York, Illinois, California and other states.

In Kentucky, the Public Service Commission cut the surcharge by almost
half. In Virginia, an irate state senator forced a renegotiation of the
contract to reduce the state's commission.

It is wrong to penalize and profit from the families of inmates, and
unconscionable that New York should lead the pack. If the federal courts do
not correct the practice, the state's Department of Correctional Services
should solicit bids for new contracts next year with a different aim in
mind -- the cheapest phone calls possible, with no kickback for the state.