Silent victims of high phone prices

We recently posted on our Facebook feed https://www.facebook.com/PrisonCallDeals a great article published by the Minneapolis daily newspaper, Star Tribune, a few months back, about the need for “prison phone justice”.

The journalist stated something that, unfortunately, we’ve seen very often; too often actually – little or no sympathy for inmates, and the problems associated with staying connected with loved ones. Even downright hate. If you have a loved one in prison you probably know what we’re talking about, even too well.

We’ve seen comments that people who are in jail should have no rights, and that even using the phone should be a privilege. But as the Star Tribune journalist rightly points out, and also many studies, “there are many reasons to care” – most notably, children.  

Looking at the data out there, we’ve read that about half the inmates are a parent to at least one child, and that 1 of 50 children in the US have a parent in jail. But this is the average; because, for African-American (non-Hispanic) children it’s 1 in 15, while for Hispanic children it’s 1 in 41.

And most inmates are serving sentences in facilities more than 100 miles away from their home and their family, which makes regular visits very difficult, and sometimes even impossible. Writing letters is one form of communication, but the phone is more personal, more immediate, and more important. Many studies have confirmed over, and over again that the number one factor for an inmate’s reintegration into society is regular contact with family. And numerous studies have also confirmed that children of incarcerated parents are more likely to have problems in school, with aggression and depression, and also with crime, particularly if there is no regular contact with the parent.

We already know that talking with your loved one in prison often breaks the family piggy bank, but next time someone asks why they should care about high prison  phone prices you can let them know “children are the silent victims”.

Lowering prison phone prices can make a child go from this:

prisoncalldeals-angry-child

to this:

prisoncalldeals-happy-child

Do you have a parent in prison? How are you coping?

Or do you have a child whose parent is in prison? How are they coping? What are you doing to help them cope?

Share your experience with us – http://prisoncalldeals.com/your-voice

 

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Posted by on July 29, 2014

Category: Inmate family issues

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One Response to “Silent victims of high phone prices”

  1. | Buzz says:

    […] you liked our post yesterday about the silent victims of high prison phone charges, and are interested in reading more about this very important issue, here is an opinion piece from […]

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