It will soon cost family members of Ohio prison inmates less to make a phone call.
Ohio Public Radio’s Jo Ingles explains.
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections has re-negotiated a contract with their current phone service provider. The new contract will bring the costs of calls to inmates down to five cents a minute plus tax. Under the old system, a 15 minute phone call could have cost an Ohio inmate more than 17 dollars. The phone provider, Global Tel-Link, has also agreed to replace the agency’s 2000 phones and add another 500 under the new contract. The negotiations follow the Federal Communication Commissioner’s 2013 decision that caps the cost of long distance calls after years of complaints by family members of prisoners and prison rights groups.