Melissa shares her experience with the impact of prison phone calls on her life during her husband’s seven years of incarceration.
Audio Submission by, Melissa
Amended Transcription of Audio:
Hi, um, my name is Melissa.
I had, um, my husband incarcerated for 7 years and the cost of phone calls is just simply ridiculous.
Many times, the phone calls get cut off and they still charge you for the whole, for your entire conversation. That could range anywhere from $5 to $10 for only a few minutes, maybe 15 minutes, if that. The costs of it all keeps adding up not only by having to travel far away but just the whole system in general. It’s very expensive, including visiting. All the expenses with food while you’re in the visiting center, or gas to get to the destination for only 2, 3 hours of visiting, it’s very difficult.
But, the phone costs is just a big rip-off. They make a lot of money as it is and it’s just really sad because a lot of families don’t have the option of visiting their loved ones so they rely on these phone conversations that can only happen once a week or sometimes even once a month depending on the prison [and] how many phone calls they allow during the period of time. I wanted to share my story.
My husband was incarcerated for 7 years in California State Prison. He is out on parole, now. I hope…I hope somebody who’s listening to this can find some hope. And it does get better.
Thank you. Bye-bye.