State prison inmates would be able to send, as well as receive, e-mails under a proposal being considered by the Board of Corrections next week.
At its meeting Monday, the board will also consider a pilot program in which inmates at two prisons would be able to order snacks and other items from the commissary and gain access to information such as their account balances using electronic kiosks that would be installed in prison barracks.
For the past two years, inmates at 10 prisons have been able to receive printouts of e-mails and photographs through a service offered by St. Louis-based Keefe Group.
The Department of Correction’s proposal would expand the service to include all 19 of the state’s prisons and work-release centers.
Inmates would also be able to purchase hand-held devices that they could use to send and receive e-mails, as well as listen to music purchased from the prison commissary.
Corrections Board Chairman Benny Magness said inmates who are able to keep in touch with relatives, through e-mail or other means, tend to have fewer behavioral problems and a better chance of staying out of trouble after their release.
The system would also give inmates more exposure to technology, he said.
“All society is going to more e-mail and stuff like that, so I just think that’s important, as long as we can control it,” Magness said.
Correction Department officials say the use of email keeps contraband from entering the prison through the postal service and improves security by creating an electronic record of inmates’ correspondence.
Relatives, friends and others can send e-mails to inmates through a website, www.accesscorrections.com. The messages are screened by prison staffusing software that flags certain words and phrases.
Last year, 55,317 e-mails were sent through the system. It is available to inmates at the Benton, Delta, East Arkansas, Grimes, Mississippi County work-release, North Central, Ouachita Regional, Pine Bluff, Tucker and Tucker Maximum Security units.
In exchange for setting up the system, Keefe Group collects a fee, ranging from 30 cents for a single e-mail to 15 cents per e-mail for a package of 60 messages.
Photographs can be sent electronically for fees ranging from 37 cents per photo for a package of four photos to 28 cents per photo for a package of 36 photos.
Under the expanded system, inmates who want to send e-mails could buy the hand-held electronic devices.
They would pay $130 for a device with 4 gigabytes of memory, or $149.50 for one with 8 gigabytes.
The inmates would be able to use the devices to write e-mails, which they could send by connecting the device to an electronic Music Warden kiosk in the prison commissary. Incoming e-mails and photographs could be transferred from the commissary kiosk to the hand-held devices.
Both incoming and outgoing messages would be screened by prison staff using the security software.
Under the proposal, the fees would increase to 40 cents for a single e-mail or 30 cents per e-mail for a package of 60. The price for sending a photograph would increase to 50 cents for a single photograph or 40 cents per photograph for a package of 36.
The Correction Department would receive a commission of about 25 percent of the e-mail and photograph fees, and would also share in the profit from the sale of the electronic players, music and accessories, such as earphones and external keyboards. Keefe would also pay the department $1,100 per month for network costs.
For $25, inmates who are released could send the devices to Keefe to be modified for use outside the prison as MP3 music players.
Keefe would also set up a kiosk at the Varner Unit in Lincoln County that visitors could use to deposit money in inmates’ accounts. The fee for a cash deposit would be $5, $1.50 of which would go to the Correction Department.
Dee Ann Newell, director of Arkansas Advocates for the Children Left Behind,said the expanded e-mail system would allow children to more easily keep in touch with parents who are in prison at a lower cost than that of making a phone call.
The nonprofit provides classes, support groups and other services for inmates and their children and relatives.
The fee for inmates for a 15-minute call is $4.80 for a call to a number in Arkansas and $10.70 for a call to an out-of-state number.
Newell said she sends e-mails to an inmate at the McPherson Unit, as does the inmate’s 19-year-old son.
“It’s a way for me to keep her updated, and its a way for her son to keep her updated,” Newell said. “It just expands the relationship connections.”
Under a separate contract, with Zivelo LLC, which is based in Marion, Ind., the department is proposing to use money from the sale of commissary items to spend $165,000 on 33 electronic kiosks for inmates at the Ouachita River Unit in Malvern and four kiosks at the Hawkins Unit in Wrightsville.
According to a memorandum to the board from Correction Department Deputy Director Sheila Sharp, inmates could use the kiosks to order commissary items, transfer money between their commissary and telephone accounts, and gain access to information such as their parole plan status andapproved-visitor list.
Money from the expanded e-mail system would be used to expand the kiosks to other prisons.
Correction Department spokesman Shea Wilson said the department doesn’t have an estimate of how much money the agency would make from the e-mail system.
Among other states that have implemented similar email systems, “Some states have had high acceptance rates - some - mostly in the South - have not had high acceptance rates,” Wilson said in an e-mail.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/22/2013