|
Effective April 2, 2001, inmates are limited to 300 minutes per
calendar month for ITS-II
monitored telephone calls. This limitation applies to all inmates
with an ITS-II account in
Bureau of Prisons institutions, and may be used for any combination
of collect or direct-
dial calls at the inmate's discretion.
By this notification, inmates are given at least 30 days notice
of the limitation, and are
encouraged to make the appropriate notifications to family and
community members.
Inmates who exhaust their 300 minutes limitation may, at the
Warden's discretion, be provided a telephone call for good cause
shown. Inmates should request such calls through the unit team.
It is intended this exception be used sparingly and only for bona
fide emergencies. The inmate is responsible for the cost of such
calls at the Warden's discretion.
This limitation [---] is needed to maintain the security and
good order of Bureau institutions and to protect the public by
increasing the Bureau's ability to minimize inmate abuses of the
telephone for illegal or disruptive purposes. The Bureau believes
a 300 minute limitation provides adequate opportunity for inmates
to maintain community ties in conjunction with visiting and written
correspondence.
NOVEMBER 7, 2000
MEMORANDUM FOR ALL CONCERNED
FROM: (name deleted)
SUBJECT: INMATE TELEPHONE ABUSE
As we are all aware, new inmate Telephone Abuse prohibited acts
have been developed in different severity categories.
To ensure consistency and fairness in response to inmate telephone
abuse behavior, U.D.C.'s are expect to apply or recommend the
following loss of privilege sanction regardless of severity level:
1st Offense ---- 6 months Telephone Restriction
2nd Offense ---- 18 months Telephone Restriction
3rd Offense ---- 3 years Telephone Restriction (not involving
criminal behavior)
3rd Offense ---- 5 years Telephone Restriction (involving criminal
behavior)
I did some research yesterday on it, looking in our CFR statutes
and Federal Registers (books the BOP rules are in). There is nothing
in them that requires these kinds of sanctions. Also the 300 minutes
per calendar month limitation is not in there. As you can see,
the sanctions of 6 months, 18 months, 3 years and 5 years when
we will be prohibited from using a telephone took effect in November
of 2000. On April 2, 2001, the 300 minutes take effect.
No one is happy about it. Everyone is quite concerned about it,
especially those with children. Also, let me run down an instance
of how easy it is to get a two year restriction put on you. I just
helped a couple of women file an appeal on their incident reports
where they were given 24 months phone restriction and also 14 good
days taken from them. Here is how one girl got hers.
Before she was transferred here, she was in MDC Miami. While
she was there she was calling her boyfriend. While dialing the
phone number, someone hollered at her to get her food out of the
microwave. (She had put something in the microwave, then went
to use the phone, they are located close to each other. I've done
the same thing a thousand times.) As she had just dialed the number,
she handed the phone to a girl friend of hers that was standing
there too and told her if someone answers ask for so-and-so while
I get my food out of the microwave. Someone answered, the girl
asked for the boyfriend, and about that time the first girl came
back to get on the phone. Her friend handed her the phone. An
officer saw her hand over the phone, so they wrote the girl up
under two code violations. One for "Taking something of value
from another inmate," and the other for "Unauthorized
Use of the Phone." As a sanction, they gave the girl 6 months
phone restriction. By the time she came here, the girl had served
3 months without being able to call her family in Miami. After
she was transferred here and went thru A & O,
The counselor gave her a pin number (a pin number is required
before an inmate can make a call out). The girl asked if she could
make a call. The counselor said yes. (Of course, I don't think
the girl told the counselor that she was on phone restriction,
but would you if you were in her place?) So the girl called her
family. About a week later, it was learned that she still had
two months to go on the 6 month phone restriction. So they wrote
her another incident report. At the disciplinary hearing, the
girl told them that yes, she had called, that she didn't know
that a sanction imposed at another institution followed her here,
as the counselor did say she could make a call and had issued
her a pin number. They gave her 18 months more on top of the 6
she already had. In effect she wound up with 24 months (2 years)
phone restriction , plus they took away 14 good days from her.
It's that easy to have your phone taken away from you for two
years.
I could maybe understand if you were using the telephone calls
for making drug transactions or something else illegal. That is
why these phone restrictions were supposedly implemented. As it
is, the BOP are playing games with people's minds. Officers must
think it's fun.
The writer is a prisoner of the War
on Drugs serving a 15 year sentence for conspiracy.
|
