Contact with families and support services on the outside is viewed as critical to the rehabilitation of the incarcerated
This translation has been automatically generated and has not been verified for accuracy.Last summer, a 65-year-old at a Montreal seniors’ home racked up a phone bill of $6,072.12 in just three months. Administrators at the complex were so alarmed they warned her she was being defrauded.
As it turned out, she was not the victim of fraud, but rather a telephone system in Ontario prisons that critics say divides families, deters rehabilitation and limits access to the justice system by hitting a vulnerable population with exorbitant bills. Bell Canada holds the contract for providing phone service at Ontario prisons.
Isabel managed to top that monthly rate in just two calls. Her phone bill shows charges as high as $30.43 for single calls from the jail, each capped at 20 minutes. That squares with the experiences of other prisoners. Prisons do post phone numbers of toll-free social-service agencies, but Mr. Budlakoti said the current list at OCDC is largely out of date. “There are 24 numbers on the list here and a lot of them don’t even work,” he said. “The John Howard Society number doesn’t work. The lawyer referral number doesn’t work. It’s a joke.”
The Ministry of the Solicitor-General has been aware of the burdensome phone bills for years. A 2016 ministry briefing note obtained by The Globe states the Liberal government of the day was considering alternative options to collect calling “in order to assist inmates with limited income.”
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