PARENT'S RIGHTS NOW!

Click here to access the "The Real Cost of Prisons" Weblog. Click here to access "The Real Costs of Prisons" website itself. One of the issues that is discussed on the site that was of interest to us was the issue of telephone toll charge price-gouging of inmates. As readers of this BLOG may recall, the exorbitant phone rates imposed upon inmates was one of the ways in which former Dorchester County Sheriff Nash was able to maintain a jail slush fund to spend as he pleased without County Council oversight. As readers may also recall, an audit revealed that this particular slush fund was one of the primary sources of the funds former Dorchester County Chief Jailer Arnold Pastor embezzled.

In the Op-ed Piece "A bad call for prisoners" Ronald Fraser writes:

Prisoners who use the telephone to maintain strong family ties will be better prepared to rebuild their lives upon returning home. Why then does Massachusetts allow price-gouging phone companies to drive prison rates for interstate calls sky high, isolating inmates from the outside world? It is time to end telephone price gouging in prisons. If phone companies in Florida, Michigan, Missouri and New York can provide inmates with reasonable rates, so can Massachusetts.

While we do not know whether newly elected Sheriff L. C. Knight has terminated the practice of price-gouging of prisoners for phone use we do think that what is good for Florida, Michigan, Missouri, and New York is good for South Carolina, particularly as it relates to taking money from incarcerated "Deadbeat Dads" that could and should go to their children.

On a related issue, we call everyone's attention to the article Lots of room to grow. Note that the Charleston County Jail houses almost three times the number of inmates it was built to house--many of them "Deadbeats." We wonder if the fines being imposed against these men are being given to Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon to offset the cost of housing and feeding them. And if not, we wonder if the Charleston County Family Court Judges would be a little more circumspect in the the number of men sent to jail for failure to pay child support if Sheriff Cannon sent the Family Court a bill each month. But, then again, maybe he makes enough money charging prisoners for phone calls and canteen privileges that this "income" offsets the costs of housing and feeding them.