Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. Read his last blog entry (and links to past ones) here. His dispatches run Monday and Thursdays; he tries to answer questions and comments as quickly as possible, but it’s a bit tricky communicating from prison, so be patient.
By Just A Guy
About six months ago, a buddy of mine was denied a visitor because his prospective visitor owes the California Department of Motor Vehicles money.
What does that actually have to do with anything? How does that pose a risk to the security of the institution or California Department of Corrections in general? Isn’t one of CDCR’s stated goals to encourage involvement/visiting with family and friends?
It is not CDCR’s responsibility to punish the inmate because his prospective visitor owes the DMV money, nor is it CDCR’s responsibility to punish the prospective visitor because he/she owes the DMV. These are two unrelated entities. If someone is late in paying their state income tax will CDCR not allow them to visit one of us? CDCR, in effect, is creating a sort of debtor’s prison, which is illegal.
The icing on the cake of this story is that the individual has been making payments to the DMV and is trying to pay off the debt, yet was still refused out of hand.
Apparently folks, CDCR’s role has expanded from public protector to debt collector as well.
This leads me to cell phones in prison. CDCR espouses family ties, yet allows Global Tel Link, which controls the prison pay phones, to charge astronomical rates on collect calls. How is this conducive to keeping strong ties to the outside world? It costs $20 to make a 15-minute call out of state! So, my friend above can’t have his girlfriend come to visit him because she hasn’t paid her DMV fine, so now she accepts his collect calls because they can’t see each other in person. But she spends a huge amount of money on these calls — and can’t pay the fine that is keeping her from visiting my friend. That’s pure insanity.