Monthly Archives: October 2017

Communications Service, Correctional Facilities, Correctional Systems, Criminal Justice System, FCC Regulations, Inmate Communications Technology

While some prisons charge too much for phone calls, many are reasonably cheap

Throughout the history of the U.S. prison system, a debate has long raged about the proper price of an outgoing phone call. One of the main issues that has arisen is the fact that jurisdictions may vary wildly in the priced that inmates are charged. This can be seen across the country, even at the state level, where states like Arizona charge up to $1.50 per minute to make outgoing phone calls while neighboring states may charge as little as $0.15 per minute for the same service.

 

This is giving rise to many horror stories. For example, Heather Kofalt has been forced to pay more than $3,000 per year to stay in contact with her incarcerated husband. In fact, her husband was convicted of nothing more than stealing $400 worth of dental accessories. Unfortunately, it ended up being his third strike, sending him to prison for a number of years. In order to stay in contact with her husband, Heather Kofalt has been forced to pay incredibly high amounts of money each week. This is a direct result of the deal that the prison phone company, Global Tel Link, has struck with that particular institution. The company is paying up to 90 percent of all revenues generated through calling taking place on it systems back to the institution.

 

Deals such as this are common in the prison phone industry. Known as legal kickbacks, these commissions that prison phone companies pay to the institution in which they are allowed to operate can constitute significant revenues for the prisons themselves. Although cases involving rates as exorbitant as those in the case of Heather Kofalt do exist, the truth is that the majority of prisons in which Global Tel Link operates give inmates rates as low as $0.15 per minute. At these rates, it is possible for the majority of inmates to stay in nearly constant touch with their loved ones, leading to strong and lasting relationships, even the inmates themselves go through a difficult life circumstance.

 

Communications Service, Inmate Communications Technology

IC Solutions: Don’t Give Up Or Give In

When someone is forced to deal with a company like IC Solutions, they want the customer to give up and they want them to give in as that means they win. The key is not to give up when it comes to a company like IC Solutions, the inmate phone provider. If people keep fighting back against them and keep doing their part to let the world know what this company is up to, I’m a firm believer they will be out of business. I have no doubt about it, in my mind. In the end, good always defeats evil. It will always be that way, no matter what.Right now, it might seem like IC Solutions has the upper hand and they are winning all of the battles. That is only in the moment, though. There is a lot more going on that people are unaware of when it comes to a company like IC Solutions and there are ways to bring them down.

It takes a team and it takes everyone believing in one another and everyone being on the same page. In the end, everyone wants the same thing, which is to speak to the inmate behind bars. They want to be there for them, help them, and guide them during this very trying and difficult time in their life. This story here http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-289944.html , is about a parent that wishes to speak to their child that is behind bars. It is a very scary for the child, I would imagine, and the parent is probably filled with a lot of fear, anxiety, and worry, which is only natural when it comes to a child being behind bars. They have lost almost one hundred dollars in an attempt to reach the child. They still have not talked to the child. This is why people need to say something now.

Criminal Justice System, Inmate Communication, Inmate Communication Agency

Global Tel-Link and the Wolves in Sheeps’ Clothing

Imagine randomly getting a bill in the mail, on some sort of online account, saying that you owe $17.00 for a 15 minutes phone call to somebody. Wouldn’t that shock, disturb and leave you repulsed? This repulsive, stomach churning reality is what loved ones of prisoners have to contend with. For those who are incarcerated only a short time, the situation is relatively not as bad. However, when a person is incarcerated for years or decades, it can hit their social network pretty hard. Imagine being a child and having a father who is put away for 30 years. Usually, children do not want to be forcibly parted from their parents, though justice has to be served when people do crimes. There are statistics that suggest that, in general, children tend to behave better, not engage in destructive situations and be happier and more successful when they are in solid, stable homes.

 

Experiencing phone calls from loving parents who are incarcerated adds an extra element of stability to a child’s life. Unfortunately, phone calls are so expensive that children may be limited by their caregivers as to how many times they can call their parents and for how long. The fact that children are not able to talk to incarcerated parents for enough hours without accruing endless debt adds to the instability and heartache of the situation that they are in.

 

These facts aren’t secrets—the people in Global Tel-Link who make business decisions know full well that they are messing around with people’s lives and psyches by putting hurtful practices in place. However, the facilities that imprisoned people stay in are wolves in sheeps’ clothing, because they seem like they aren’t part of the problem when they really are. Like the thoughtless animals that they are, facilities actually give incentives to Global Tel-Link to charge people so much.

 

Criminal Justice System, Inmate Communication, Inmate Communication Agency, Inmate Communications Technology

Keefe Group Correctional Facilities Services

Having been in service to city, county and state correctional facilities since 1975, the Keefe Group provides food products, as well as personal care items, electronics and clothing to prison inmates and to their families and friends who want to buy and send their incarcerated loved ones the products. The company is responsible for packaging and distributing the much-needed items to the facilities.

 

The automated commissary management service has its headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, but it has operational facilities all over the nation, which serves over 500,000 inmates on a weekly basis. The 6 affiliate companies of the Keefe Group are: Access Securepak; Keefe Commissary Network; IC Solutions; Access Corrections; Keefe Supply Company; and Advanced Technologies Group.

 

The Keefe Group works with name-brand companies, but have their own private-label brands as well. They sell food products, such as, meat snacks, Ramen noodles, cookies, seafood and ready-to-eat meals, just to name a few. And the personal items they sell are, shampoos, toothpastes, deodorants, lotions and shaving products. Other merchandies, like underwear, shoes, pants, headphones, clocks and watches are also available for purchase.

 

The company, which is led by its president, Thomas Keefe, first started in the correctional market by selling packets of single-serve coffee to a prison in Florida. They went on to start selling their products full-time to correctional commissaries, later becoming one of the leading providers of food, personal, electronic, and clothing items to prison facilities all over the country.

 

Their Access Securepak Program is designed to make sure that no contraband makes it into the prison along with the care packages that the inmates’ families and friends may send to them. This is an effective program to have in place due to the fact that there are now more inmates and their families ordering packages from this service.

 

The prison and county jail commissaries business is a very lucrative one, usually bringing in about $1.6 billion a year from its sales. Since more of these types of correctional facilities have started outsourcing their commissary services to businesses like the Keefe Group, the company has continued to have steady financial growth.

 

The Keefe Group, which is owned by Andrew Taylor, who is its Executive Chairman, and by his father, Jack Taylor, is one of the top 3 companies in the prison commissaries market. The other two are, Trinity and Aramark, but Keefe has maintained its position in the market by being able to stay competitive in its bidding on prison commissary outsourcing production opportunities. That’s probably part of the reason why the Trinity Services Group initiated a merger with them a year ago, because together, those two companies could almost completely eliminate the only other competition they have.

 

Criminal Justice System, Inmate Communication, Inmate Communication Agency, Inmate Communications Technology

Stalemate alongside Prison Communications, The Telmate

The recognition of Telmate is on the rise alongside the provision of the prisoner phones together with the video visitation, the inmate tablets, the investigation tools, mobile applications as well as the service of secure messaging. It is in San Francisco, California that the company headquarters is situated.

 

Securus Technologies Company has done a lot in facilitating the implementation of the outstanding and potential ideas. It is, however, worth acknowledging the fact that the opponents were never contented. It is for this reason that they decided to denounce the firm’s Chief Executive Officer. The intention, in this case, was nothing apart from snatching the clients. They hoped that it would result in the downgrading the potential of Securus in line with the duties that it took part in.

 

As a result, Securus submitted a petition at the Law Court of Texas. The allegation, in this case, was that Telmate LLC executed a campaign drill that was wicked and went beyond the expectations. The outcome of this was an interference with their activities as well as the way in which they relate to clients. Besides, they also highlighted that the Lanham Act had been violated.

 

Worth acknowledgment is the consistency in the way handlers of Telmate debated against the means that were put in place during the time the other firms handled them. The argument alongside this is the fact the only freedom they had was that of making deposits of their money. They would, however, not make calls to follow as they needed. Despite the attempts by the representatives of The Telmate’s Client Care to give a justification for their failures, their stand in the course of argument was invalid. The reason is that the cards are ever valid and their utilization happens only once.

 

Additionally, Telmate contributed a lot in line with the application and adaptation of a three-way call. Even though it never turned out to be a success, the attempt was an excellent idea. The explanation as to why it wasn’t three-way is simple. The reason is that it only progressed between two individuals and not three.

 

Telmate has recorded some positive advances in the course of its operation. Additionally, the initiative that it has in place acts as the evidence that it is destined for greatness.

 

Inmate Communication, Inmate Communication Agency, Inmate Communications Technology

A Look at the lawsuit against Telmate

On August 23, 2011, Prisons Telecommunications Company by the name Securus Technologies Inc. filed an unfair competition suit against its rival company in Texas. Securus Technologies claimed that the rival company used defamatory lies and false advertising about the company and the CEO to drive their customer’s away. Securus which is a Dallas corporation, filed suit in federal court claiming that Oregon-based Telmate LLC conducted a malicious campaign to interfere with Securus business relations. The complaint argued that Telmate breached the Lanham Act by using misleading statements about its success in an attempt to lure customers sign up for contracts.

 

Securus argued that Telmate was engaging itself in acts of unfair competition that was contrary to the law and fundamental notions of business propriety. Securus suggested that Telmate was out to defame their CEO, Rick Smith, as well as invade his privacy. Securus also claimed that Telmate was making false statements about the quality of services offered by Securus. Securus also suggested that Telmate used fake phone numbers to deceive customers into believing that Securus does not answer its phone calls. This suggested that Telmate answers their phone calls almost immediately. According to Securus, Oregon company announced a challenge to the potential customers to see which company answered its phone calls faster. Unfortunately, Oregon gave out an old and out-of-service number for Securus.

 

The suit alleged that Telmate increased their revenue by $900 thus making $2,200 every month at facilities that had previously been clients of Securus. Securus declared that it increased that revenue before Telmate took over. The suit also alleged that Telmate lied in exaggeration about its success where it claimed that it had been offering inmate communication services since the year 1988. This was not the case since it had only been providing those services since 2005.

 

The suit stated that Telmate said it won a contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security when this was not the case. According to the suit, the contract was given to a separate company that in turn subcontracted some of its work to Telmate. Securus is applying for a jury trial as well as an injunction against Telmate to keep it from the alleged unlawful advertising practices and actual statutory damages.

 

Criminal Justice System, Inmate Communication, Inmate Communication Agency, Inmate Communications Technology

How the Keefe Group is Changing Inmate Lives

Keefe Group is a private institution that delivers quality products and services to correctional facilities in the United States. The organization offers these facilities products such as software solutions, electronic equipment, clothes, telecommunication devices, personal effects, and foodstuffs. The Keefe Group has been in the competitive market since 1975, and it has won the hearts of very many people who are looking for excellent services. The private company is highly commendable, and this is why it has done so well despite the high competition.

 

Unlike most of its competitors, the Keefe Group makes sure that it incorporates fresh ideas in its products and services. The packaging is also out of this world so that the customer is left satisfied. Most of the individuals who have used the services from the company say that they got the best. The institution has grown significantly since it was established several decades ago.

 

Thanks to the growth, the Keefe Group has successfully managed to form various subsidiaries. Some of these include IC Solutions, Keefe Supply Company, the Keefe Commissary and many others. The group of companies has worked hard to conquer the competitive market in the last four decade.

 

The professionals working at the Keefe Group have played a fundamental role in the success of the institution. These individuals understand the importance of quality services, especially for the people who are incarcerated. When these people are not given the kind of services they need, then they can reform fast and become better persons in the society. Being in prison does not make the inmates better people if they are not given the kind of services they deserve.

 

The services from the private institution are very affordable. Most of the private companies in the competitive market have been doing their best to offer excellent services to the inmates, but they have been charging extravagant prices for the products and services they have been offering. Although these services are crucial, most people in the prisons cannot afford them. Keefe Group is slowly changing the department, and it is looking forward to making the lives of inmates better in the future.