If there's one thing Pennsylvania's Department of Imprisonment is crazy for, it's your money. Pennsylvania's Department of Imprisonment doesn't see itself as a legitimate public agency. It doesn't think it exists to serve the citizens. It sees itself as the Halliburton of state government, a crooked corporation out to gouge you for as much money as possible. The official policy of the Pennsylvania Department of Imprisonment is to harm the citizens, not to benefit them. Pennsylvania's Department of Imprisonment, laughingly called the "DOC," is as greedy as the worst big businesses in the country. These are shameless thieves. Their newest crooked money-making scheme is the telephone racket. The Maffia could hardly do better. In partnership with what appears to be a corrupt organization which seems to operate out of Florida or Colorado (or both), DOC is merrily grabbing millions of dollars from prisoners' families. It's purely a racket, a criminal scheme! DOC's partner is an organization which seems to hide behind a number of aliases. The most common seem to be Global Tel*Link and "GTL." It also calls itself Gores Group and sometimes Gores Technology Group. Why would any legitimate business need so many aliases and why would a state agency want to partner with an organization which uses aliases? DOC's telephone partner appears to be the unclean spawn of MCI Maximum Security and/or Verizon Business Department of Corrections Division. Whatever alias they use, this unsavory mob is now in partnership with Pennsylvania's Department of Imprisonment and with other prison systems around the country. They promise their prison partners that they'll "always increasing revenue for the facility!" The "revenue" is millions of dollars taken from some of the poorest persons in the nation, the families of prisoners, mostly minorities, who can hardly make ends meet as it is. These are families struggling to stay together and to rehabilitate from the social evil of imprisonment. A prisoner phoning his wife from a Pennsylvania prison must pay $5.69 to talk to her for 15 minutes. Half of that is kicked back to the greedy Department of Imprisonment. Republicans think it's a perfectly dandy system, a revenue stream taxing the poor. Republicans like to tax the poor and give benefits to big businesses such as Global Tel*Link. Half-literate prison functionaries think that an average cost of 40¢ a minute is quite fair. They don't want to reveal that they pay only 2¢ per minute. It's embarrassing. If a prisoner telephones his family collect, the price is even higher. It's all money flowing into the pockets of DOC and their crooked big business partner. The Pennsylvania Department of Imprisonment rakes in about $6,000,000 a year. In exchange for these huge fees, the "customer" isn't just cheated, she/he gets to have his phone call wiretapped, recorded, "monitored," censored and used against her/him if he should dare to use a forbidden word like "pussy." Only prison guards are allowed to use such terms. Global Tel*Link doesn't seem to have the required registered business address within Pennsylvania. It claims an address at Box 173875 in Denver, Colorado, 80217. Perhaps that's a legitimate address at which they can be served legal process; we doubt it. They also give a phone number of 1-800-231-0193. We believe the number to be nothing but a cover-up. When our publisher called to complain about the service, especially about the repeated disconnection of calls, the unreliability of the service and the staggering cost, an anonymous voice made no sincere effort to correct problems. He did nothing except blame the customer and/or the prisoner. Global Tel*Link was never at fault and never had to make any adjustments or corrections. It's that rarest of things, "perfect!" If there was something wrong, it was what the prisoner or his/her family was doing. The phone scheme involves prisoners or their families prepaying money to the DOC/Global Tel*Link partnership before any calls are actually made. No interest is paid on the deposited funds. The system isn't about service. It's about MONEY, PROFITS! There are several schemes to collect money from prisoners and their families. In all cases, the racket guarantees that refunds "will only be made upon an inmate's release from jail. . .A refund will only be made if requested by the facility and/or by the commissary company. Inmate requests for refunds will be denied!" No matter that the company is at fault or that the Department of Imprisonment is at fault, nobody's getting a penny back from this corrupt organization. They brag that "the amount of money leftover should be minimal!" We've been unable to discover if Global Tel*Link is a publicly held corporation. If it is, the SEC may have something to say about them and their practices. We'll try. Buying a share of stock may give a citizen some voice to complain at stockholders' meetings. Complaining to the Department of Imprisonment is like begging Halliburton to quit killing victims in Iraq as a way to make money for the Cheney gang. Rebecca's Bargain Antiques Collectible Vintage Photos Fine Prints - Old Maps Sheet Music - Old Books Elegant Antiques and Collectibles "It's like a portmanteau - there are two meanings packed into one word," Lewis Carrol, 1872 You are welcome to use or re-publish any of our material. Please give www.prisoners.com credit as the source. Return to the New and Interesting Items Menu Return to the Public Enemies Menu Return to the Glimpse of Prison Life Menu Return to the Main Menu. Go to our site Search Feature. Send us Your Comments, Questions or Input.