Phone Calls Are a Lifeline in Prison. Trump Is Set on Keeping Them Exorbitant.

"Jamee Miller was stunned when she first realized just how much it would cost to stay connected to her son during his incarceration. She made weekly prison visits to avoid the high cost of calls. Then, without notice, he was transferred. For weeks, she did not even know where he was. The silence was unbearable."

"Phone calls would be their only way to stay connected and maintain what she called a strong "pilina," the Indigenous Hawaiian word for relationship. "We talked every single day," Miller recalled, "but it was expensive - five, ten, sometimes fifteen dollars a day." Looking for ways to make calls cheaper, she registered for an Arizona phone number that would qualify for local rates and had those calls forwarded to her cell phone. But even with these efforts, her family spent over $500 each month on calls. They had to cut back on other spending to afford the one thing that mattered most: keeping their son from loneliness and despair."

"Miller's experience is a common one. Across the United States, millions of families of incarcerated people are forced to make impossible financial decisions and, ultimately, sacrifices. One in three end up going into debt just to maintain a relationship with their loved ones behind bars."

Jamee Miller traveled weekly to visit her incarcerated son until he was transferred from a Hawaii state prison to a private facility in Arizona, making visits impractical. Daily phone calls became the primary way to maintain their pilina, but per-call charges and long-distance rates made calls expensive. Miller registered for an Arizona number and forwarded calls, yet the family still spent over $500 monthly, cutting other expenses to pay. Across the United States, millions of families face similarly steep communication and travel costs; one in three families incur debt trying to sustain relationships, increasing isolation and hardship for incarcerated people and relatives.

Read at Truthout