Nicholle La Vann accepted collect calls from her son during the first couple of months of his incarceration in Upstate New York. Then came the bills and a realization that it’s a “rip off.”
“I refuse to be exploited to hear my son’s voice,” says Nicholle.
Instead, she told her son to write and visits him every three to four months so he knows he has her support. It was just a way for the prison system and phone carrier to make money, she says.
Although intense lobbying in New York helped reform the unfair system of charging 16 cents or more a minute with a $3 surcharge for every call (well above what consumers pay otherwise), Family Life Behind Bars is collecting information on how much money people paid over the years and sacrifices they made for accepting collect calls.
If you are one of the countless number of people who struggled to keep a strong bond with a loved one in prison by accepting collect calls, please take the informal survey. Come join our live call-in show on Wednesday, Jan. 27 at 9 p.m. ET to share your experiences and thoughts.
The results are listed in real-time below, but please keep in mind that they have not been verified:
