Free prison phone calls.

Imagine waking up one day and finding out a relative or loved one was incarcerated, how would you feel about it? Most likely a wave of emotions; Shock, Confusion, Distress, Anxiousness and most of all, you would want to speak with them. You want to know what the situation is.

This is where the problem lies. If your loved one is lucky enough to be placed in a facility where there is a phone in the cell, then good news! After a few days or weeks for your number to be registered they can now phone home (providing all the ID is correct and they put the request in in the first place). Now, after waiting weeks to here your loved ones voice, you’re finally approved and they can give you a call. Except they need credit. 

It’s not an issue not at first, ten pounds here, fifteen pounds there. It’s worth it to speak to them, right? You would never have them going without. But it starts to add up, money becomes a stretch, you can’t always pay your bills on time, you’re in debt, you’re borrowing money and you begin to wonder, how is this right?

the answer? It’s not. Why should friends and family be punished for something that isn’t their fault? Yes, the convicted person (or persons) may be incarcerated by their own means but it cannot he expected that the family would let them go with out the funds to phone home. The prison service know that families wouldn’t let this happen, and they have found a way to profit from it. You can try and excuse this by saying “ It helps with prison funding.”. “It’s what happens outside.” And yes while those things may be true, we have to remember that prison is very different from the outside. So much so that category D prisons AKA: “open prisons.” exist to help people merge back into society. Secondly, it is the governments responsibility to provide the proper funding of prisons themselves, profit should not be made on people’s misery.

its nearing the end of 2018. We have progressed a lot as a country and as a society in recent years. So let’s continue this progress. Despite views on prisons mainly stemming from an “eye for an eye” type philosophy, we are better than this. We need to remember that prisoners are people too. The ones who pose an extreme risk to society are withheld accordingly E.G: solitary confinement, no phones to communicate with anyone on the outside. But the focus needs to be shifted, reform needs to be put in place. Prisoners are people, with families and lives and jobs and interests and hobbies. They have aspirations and dreams.  

When I woke up to an armed raid of my flat noon of September 6th 2018. I did not expect my fiancé of five years to be taken away and incarcerated. He suffers from mental health issues that he was refused help for by the mental health services of the UK as a result of gross negligence on their part, he is now incarcerated by Her Majesty's Prison Service. We lead normal lives, we have dreams and apsirations and interests. We have families and loved ones. We have pets and relationships. We are people. He is a person. They all are. And they should have the right to speak to their families without the financial strain. It’s not fair to profit off the families because of the prisoners mistake.

Reform always starts somewhere, and here is this point. I ask you to please sign this petition, please research this and realise that it is not okay to charge people for a family call and that doing so, shows roots of a much deeper problem in our prisons. I know people may not have sympathy and I’m not asking for that, but merely, empathy. Imagine if this was your situation, imagine if it was your financial difficulties, imagine if it all changed for you. So let’s sign this petition, let’s say no to the costs of phone calls and achieve free phone calls. Because we need Change in our prisons. Thank you for taking the time to read this.