Cheaper to call Vatican City: Why is it so expensive to make phone calls from prison?

Many Australians rarely stop to consider the price of a phone call.

But in some Australian jails, private telecommunications companies are charging prices advocates fear are pushing the cost of connecting with loved ones beyond the reach of some prisoners.

It can cost nearly $7 to make a 12-minute phone call from Victorian jails, with high prison call costs standard across most of the country.

Victorian prisoners pay 57 cents per minute for calls to mobiles.

It might not sound that expensive, but adjusted for inflation, it is about the rate paid by Australian households (for calls to mobiles) in 2004.

A Telstra home phone customer gets a similar rate calling internationally to Hong Kong. Or a cheaper one calling Vatican City.

Advocates say the cost of phone calls are unnecessarily punitive when family contact during incarceration, including phone calls, has been shown to predict lower rates of recidivism, drug or alcohol dependence and improved mental health following release.

Last month, Minnesota became the fourth American state to introduce reforms to make prison phone calls free, following moves by Connecticut, California and Colorado.

The Victorian government says the cost of prison phone calls factor in a range of safety and security requirements, such as the ability to record and monitor calls.

The cost of calling landlines from Victorian prisons is lower (up to 19 cents a minute), while calls to oversight and health bodies are free.

Former Victorian prisoner Teegan said calling mobiles was "extremely expensive" but calls to landlines added up too.

"When you have children, you should be able to call your children without the worry of whether you can afford it or not," she said.

The 37-year-old mother-of-two served more than three years in custody for intentionally causing serious injury and criminal damage.

Her son was nine years old when she was first incarcerated.

"It became harder if he was having a stressful day at school, something had happened and I wanted to talk to him about it, or if I was upset," she said.

"For women, the punishment isn't being imprisoned, the punishment is being taken away from your family.

"Not being able to contact them is just an added thing that we shouldn't have to deal with."

The Yoorrook Justice Commission, Victoria's Indigenous truth-telling inquiry, has heard evidence the high prison call costs disproportionately impact First Nations people, who are over-represented in the justice system.

Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter said the inquiry had heard from incarcerated First Nations women who were making daily phone calls fearing family members would pass away while they were in prison.

"We know the mortality rates for Aboriginal people, we die younger," the Wurundjeri and Ngurai Illum Wurrung woman said.

She said the high price of calls had added impacts on First Nations people due to family and cultural obligations.

"You take away the one connection that holds people safe, and that's their family," she said.

"That connection to your family and community is what keeps us strong as Aboriginal people.

"To charge exorbitantly and actually make money off that is absolutely ridiculous.

"We're in an age now where these phone calls should be free … we've got mobiles now."

Free Zoom calls are available in Victorian prisons.

While there is no limit to how many can be made, a government spokesperson said they usually needed to be booked with 72 hours' notice.

Ms Hunter said some of the incarcerated women she spoke with did not know the Zoom calls were available, but those who had accessed them were grateful.

During recent Yoorrook public hearings, Corrections Victoria officials and Corrections Minister Enver Erdogan acknowledged the phone call charges were excessive and the minister said he would look into what could be done.

The 830-page cultural review into Victoria's prison system, published in March, also recommended improving access to prison phone calls, and reducing the cost.

Vacro, a Victorian criminal justice reintegration service provider, said the high costs had a flow-on impact to families.

"Most people in prison are earning around $6.50 a day," Vacro policy advisor, Abigail Lewis said.

"That means that one 12-minute phone call that day costs more than their entire wages for the day.

"In order to receive phone calls, often family have to put money on their loved one's account inside the prison and fund the calls themselves."

Nerita Waight, CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, said it was "gross" the service had been privatised.

"Our legal system must be focused on healing, rehabilitation and building stronger communities – not exploitation, punishment and dislocation," she said.

In Victoria, the prison pay telephone system is currently provided by Comsec TR, as part of a six-year contract that began in 2019, with two extension options that could carry the contract to 2029.

The state government would not reveal the value of the contract.

Comsec TR, which is majority owned by European prison media and communications provider Telio, also provides prison phone systems in Tasmania and Queensland.

Victorian prisoners were paying the highest rate to call mobiles in the country for which data was available.

Even though Comsec TR also has the contract in Tasmania, prisoners there pay a lower rate (36 cents per minute for calls to mobile, compared to 57 cents in Victoria) .

Queensland and South Australia declined to provide the cost of calls to mobiles for prisoners, claiming the information was commercially sensitive.

In NSW prisoners are offered one free personal call a week, while unsentenced prisoners get free legal calls plus two extra free personal calls each week. Extra calls in NSW are charged at a rate of 27 cents per minute (to mobiles), according to Corrective Services NSW.

The Northern Territory is the only Australian jurisdiction where the prison phone system is government-run, but the cost of calls there is still comparatively high (40 cents per minute for calls to mobile).

Western Australian prisoners access the most affordable calls in the country.

WA prisoners pay just 5 cents per minute (for mobile and landline calls) plus a 35 cent connection fee, according to WA's Department of Justice.

Wanda Bertram from American research organisation the Prison Policy Initiative said there was "dramatic change" in prison phone call rates in the US following sustained lobbying over the last decade.

"When we began doing this work, it was not uncommon for rates to be as high as $1 a minute for phone calls," she told the ABC from Seattle.

Since then, US telco regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, has imposed caps on phone call charges from county-run jails and state-operated prisons.

"The current caps on rates are in most jails 21 US cents a minute (32 cents) and in most prisons 12 cents a minute (18 cents)," Ms Bertram said.

"Once prison phone calls were an issue that that was all in the public's mind … there began to be conversations about, well, shouldn't these calls just be free?"

She said since then, several states and individual cities, including San Francisco, New York City and San Diego, had decided to make prison calls free.

Teegan said while she was in prison in Victoria, her family was able to organise to purchase a landline diversion number so she was able to contact them for a lower rate ($2.28 for a 12 minute call).

These services, colloquially known as 'Engin' numbers, mean prisoners are able to contact their families' mobile phones via a local landline number that diverts, given many people do not have access to a landline.

One such service, PrisonConnect, was launched by David Austin four years ago when he noticed his call forwarding business was receiving lots of sign-ups from customers receiving calls from prison numbers.

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He said his business had hundreds of active customers in Victoria — and there were several competing businesses offering the same service.

"We have many customers who are their inmate's primary mental health support and who receive multiple calls per day during difficult times," he said.

Even though he has built a business around it, he said a reduction in the prices of prison calls would ultimately be a good thing.

"Obviously that would be bad for our business, but it would be a win for society," he said.

Yoorrook Justice Commissioner Sue-Anne Hunter pointed out that during COVID-19, Telstra was able to make calls from payphones free for everyone — so why not make those changes in prison too.

She said the women she had spoken with in prison were aware they had done something wrong or understood why they were in prison.

"But what they didn't understand was why they couldn't have access to their family," she said.

"It's a phone call … a simple phone call."