Brian's Your Boy!
By: George Feigley, Cofounder
The reason the prison phone system disconnected me was because
I was breathing. Brian told me so. Prisoners who are
still breathing must expect to be disconnected. It's part of
the racket.
Prisoners who are no longer breathing are no better off. They, too, must expect to be disconnected. Brian told me so. If it rained recently, or if there's noise on the noisy cellblock, the prison phone system disconnects. It's part of the racket. If there's "et cetera," (whatever that may be) the prison phone system will disconnect. Brian told me so! Once Brian strung tin cans together with Girl Scout twine. That was training enough. The prison made him the telephone expert. Thankfully, his duties weren't technical. As a guard lieutenant, his acumen seemed miniscule. Brian's duties were simply to cover-up for the prison phone racket. That's easy enough even for a prison guard. Pennsylvania prison guards are trained to lie, bully and cheat. A cover-up is right down Brain's alley. The Pennsylvania prison telephone system in a major moneymaker. The Department of Imprisonment must keep the dollars flowing. It's a monopoly. It's a partnership between the Department of Imprisonment and T-Netix. They split tens of millions of dollars. It's money wrung from prisoners and their families.
To keep the cash flowing the Pennsylvania Department of Imprisonment (called DOC for "Drain of Cash") has a few responsibilities. It must cover-up for the many defects in the telephone system. DOC must also hold down the phone customers. To cheat prisoners and their families, complaints can't be tolerated. That's where Brian is your boy!The T-Netix telephone gadget is complete garbage. It's defective. It's dishonest. It's expensive - VERY expensive. It's supposed to censor telephone calls. That's called the American way. Spy on citizens. It censors not just prisoners, but everyone they phone. That's okay, Pennsylvania citizens have few rights, anyhow. The T-Netix phone system doesn't really work. Oh, it censors, alright, that's easy, just eavesdrop. Even a guard lieutenant can accomplish that. The T-Netix system pretends to have a few other, slightly more complicated features. For one thing, it's programmed to disconnect calls.
They do even better cheating on collect calls. If the prisoner phones his wife, she's soaked a whopping $2.77 just to connect the call. After that, she's charged 27¢ a minute. It's unconscionable. As I said, it's a racket. A 15 minute chat with an imprisoned hubby costs the wife $6.55! DOC and T-Netix split it. They chuckle all the way to the vault. Screwing the public is a DOC speciality. Who did I think I was?! I complained because the phone racket disconnected my calls. It did it repeatedly. As I said, the system is garbage. Brian was right there to straighten me out. The Texas corporation thanks you, Brian. DOC thanks you, Brian. The money flows without interruption. The cheating never stops. Silly me, I wanted my money back. For some reason I object to being cheated. Brian explained it all to me. It's Department of Imprisonment policy to cheat me. It's DOC policy to cheat everybody. Screwing the public is a DOC speciality. Being one of the phone censors, Brian listened to the recordings of my phone calls. No, I hadn't broken any of the sundry rules. Very reluctantly, he had to admit that. No, I hadn't used the dreaded "three-way calling." When the system disconnected the calls, it told a lie. It lied that I'd tried to use forbidden three-way calling. If that were to happen Homeland Security goes on Red Alert, jets are scrambled and the U.N. convenes in emergency cession. But, No! I hadn't done that. Brian decided that it was "louder than normal breathing directly into the phone." Yep, it was breathing! It was all my fault. I was still breathing! How can I deny it? Brian had me dead to rights. I was breathing. Since I have bad asthma, I may even have breathed louder that "normal" (however Brian figured out what "normal" was) . Being an exceptional gentleman, Brian attached a list of reasons why I'm allowed to be cheated. It listed ten reasons to cheat me. Number 10 was the best one, "etc," anything the monopoly wants. If it's rained during the past few weeks that's another reason to cheat me. If the T-Netix phone lines make noise, I'm sunk. Of course, the whole T-Netix system is garbage. There's always noise.
Brian straightened me out. My money wasn't available because my money wasn't available! Who can argue with that. Brian is your boy!I appealed to the Minister of Misery. Very tolerantly, the Minister of Misery told me in no uncertain terms that Brian was right. Department of Imprisonment policy was to cheat people who gamble on the telephone system. The prison phone system is a kind of lottery. You never know how much you'll be charged.
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T-Netix got the partnership thanks to a Republican political
deal. T-Netix is a Texas corporation. The Bushites scheme was
to ship tons of Pennsylvania cash to the Texas Republican machine.
Like most Republican schemes it paid them a lot of your money.
It sounds like a small thing, but disconnecting calls greatly
enhances profits for T-Netix and DOC. A prisoner must pay
$2.25 just to connect or reconnect a call. If T-Netix
can disconnect a call and the sucker calls back, the monopoly
rakes in an additional $2.25 windfall.
Since I'm a low-life prisoner, I'd also dared to complain about
my money. I was so dumb that I thought that where I paid over
$100 to the Department of Imprisonment for phone time, I should
be allowed to actually use the phone time. It just shows how
dumb we prisoners are. My money wasn't available to make calls.
I had to make collect calls. That meant that the telephone
monopoly made 23% more profit, 23% more for DOC, 23% more for
T-Netix. I thougth that I was being cheated.