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♫ Music intro ♫ Title: Prison Profiteers, Global Tel Link
Narrator voice "Think your phone company charges too much?
Try Global Tel Link, the biggest phone company for prisoners and their families.
Global Tel Link makes more than $500 million a year
charging sky-high rates to the very people who are least able to pay."
Nashville, TN Boy speaking "My name is Kenny I'm 9.
(showing photos) "Here's me, here's my mom
and here's my dad.
He is tall and he's funny, he is in jail."
Woman speaking "And do you get to visit him a lot?"
Kenny answers "No."
LaTonya Davis, Kenny's mom speaking "My son's father is in County, CCAA,
we can't make the commute as often... to see his dad because there because the commute is alike almost a four hour drive.
Phone calls are a problems because they cost too much
and I have other bills I'm a single parent.
The service provider we use is Global Tel Link."
Mel Motel, Research Associate, Human Rights Defense Committee speaking "What they do is they enter into contracts with
the state prisons, county jails, detention centers
and prisoners and their families have no choice but to
make calls through Global Tel Link."
RT News reporter speaking "I want to put this in a little perspective here,
call via private company Global Tel Link costs a dollar and thirteen cents a minute.
That's about seventeen bucks for a fifteen-minute phone call."
Male voice narrating "Seventeen dollars just to hear a loved one's voice,
while everyone else can talk to people across the globe for next to nothing.
How does Global Tel Link get away with it? By rigging the system.
It gets contracts by offering kickbacks to the prisons.
The bigger the kickback called a "commission",
the more likely the prison is to give the contract to Global Tel Link
the cost gets passed on the families through high prices."
reviews on ConsumerAffairs.com "This is the worst company ever."
"We have no choice if we want to be in touch with friends or family."
"We are being held hostage by this ripoff."
"You are... playing on the emotions of the incarcerated."
"There has to be a better alternative than having to deal with these crooks?!"
Woman speaking to Kenny "How often would you talk to him if you could?"
Kenny " Um, every week. because we never get to spend any time together."
2.7 million kids have a parent incarcerated.
Mel Motel speaking " The more contact that prisons have with people on the outside like support networks, family and friends, the more likely they are to succeed in prison and when they get out."
Narrator speaking "In 2013 the FCC announced it would cap prison phone rates but that just affects calls from state to state.
Most prisoners family members like a LaTonya and Kenny, make their calls within a state.
Without more action their rates will stay high."
Kenny speaking 'If I could talk to my dad right now I would say I miss him."
Fight to prison profiteers tell the FCC
to cap all prison phone rates at PrisonProfiteers.org