High-priced jail phone calls: $15 to talk to your daughter [calmatters.org]

Rafael Maravilla(PACEs Connection Staff) 4/28/214:00 AM

By Anne Stuhldreher, Cal Matters, April 27, 2021

Growing up, Blossom Sergejev was lucky if she talked to her mother once a week. Usually it was once a month. Even then their conversations ended almost as soon as they started. She and her brother and sister had a timer to make sure all three got their fair share of their mother’s time – five minutes each.

“There was no small talk on those calls, and it wasn’t at all light-hearted,” Sergejev says. “We got down to the grit of what was going on.”

They simply couldn’t afford to talk longer, not with rates of approximately $15 for a 15-minute call from jail, remembers their mother Amika Mota, who was incarcerated for several years starting in 2008. Not that Sergejev grasped the reasons as a 6-year-old.

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Andrea D Clements, PhDMember

People who are incarcerated and their families are extorted for many things...phone calls, video visits, deodorant...the list goes on and on. When too many people make money from something, it's hard to motivate change.

4/28/216:47 AM

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