And as is often the case when important issues affecting tens of thousands of low-status citizens are involved, almost no one was paying attention. Since 1996, MCI, now known as MCI WorldCom, has had an exclusive contract with the Department of Correctional Services, which runs the state's 70 prisons, to provide phone service to the 70,000 inmates. Under this deal, inmates can make collect calls only to people on an approved list.
Collect calls cost significantly more than direct calls.
In addition, the Department of Correctional Services requires that MCI WorldCom pay the department 60 percent of its total income from the phone calls. As a result, the recipients of inmate phone calls pay a huge surcharge for the calls, much higher than what a person living across the street from the prison would pay for the same call. They are charged 60 percent more than both the cost and the profit from the phone service combined. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who include inmates and their friends and families, say this amounts to an illegal tax that's being imposed on a captive and largely poor population. WorldCom and the Department of Correctional Services have moved to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that it has no legal merit, and Judge Daniels heard arguments on that point last week.