Interview with Charles, m ray, Leon, Jean, Accountant, Hot attorney, Lil Will, Cam and big boi
JM: Did you have regular access to telephones? Charles: The phones are collect only, they are on from 8am
to 10pm daily. Free phones are available in the
bookin area at central intake. free phones may
only be used when you are in the bookin process. m ray: yes collect calls only Leon: Yes there were pay phones in the tanks. Jean: Yeah, we did in our cells. Every day you could use the phone. If
you could make a collect phone call, you could make a phone
call 24 hours a day. actually, that's not true. They turn the
phones off at 10, and turn them back on at 8 in the morning.
You have access to a collect call only, and those phone calls are
$7.55 per minute. Your friends and family can run up a few
thousand dollar phone call really quick, so be fast when you call
them.
Everyone that was in there. My biggest group was when I was in
the infirmary. There were 25 women sharing one phone. Not
everyone would call all the time - some people would call their
boyfriend every night, and some would call their moms. How
ever many people were on the floors (or cells, as I called it),
there's nine girls or 25 to a phone. In the big areas with 60 girls,
there might be two phones.
Accountant: Yes for local calls only. Hot attorney: Only pay phones and they only work during certain
times of the day. Lil Will: Yes but they are regular rip off collect phones Cam: From 8 a.m. to 11p.m most phones
are available..However, there are some inmates
that hog the phone and do not allow others to use
them..This normally causes fights and riots in
the tank..Ive seen it many times.. big boi: 8 am - 10 pm
JM: What types of charges applied for calling people? Charles: If calling local they are about 5 too 7 dollars a
call. m ray: its really expensive Leon: Not sure I didn't use them. Jean: As mentioned above the calls were $7.55 per minute -
ridiculous.
When you call it gives them the chance to accept it or not. So
you can't call your employer and tell them you're feeling sick - it
tells them where you're calling from.
Sometimes you can call cell phone - it's kind of weird. It
depends on what kind of cell phone they have. If you have one
like my husband has, well, first he had one of those pay per use
kind, like the Virgin mobile, it just cost him ten cents a minute
because they had no way of billing him. It worked for a long
time, but then they called him and it wouldn't anymore. His
partner's phone is Cingular, and it accepts collect calls, but a lot
of phones won't, and there's not anything you can do. You can't
make your phone take collect calls. It's whether your carrier will
let you take collect calls or not.
Don't be fooled, though - even though the calls are expensive,
you will still have a lot of competition for the phones. I don't
know what the general rule is, but it seems to me that any black
person that's in jail is always going to have groceries, they're
always going to have money, and they're always going to be able
to make phone calls. They've got something going on out there
that us white people don't know about. That's all I can say about
that. I don't mean that to be prejudice, but I just know that an
average family could not afford what they've got. Accountant: While in there, I made about twenty calls to a
relative, and once out, I paid a phone bill in
the amount of $70 Hot attorney: Regular collect call fees. Cam: If I'm not mistaken there was a $3.95 fee for
called collect from the jail..
JM: Did you need to buy phone cards to call out? Charles: Phone calls are not available to the inmates. The
dallas county jail uses At&t collect call system.
Collect time may be bought and added to any phone
number by calling At&t. That allows inmates to
call even cell phones collect. I think it also
give you a little discount for each call. m ray: no Leon: No. Jean: No, you couldn't use phone cards. Accountant: Buying things wasn't an option........they take
away all freedom/rights. Cam: No.. big boi: no
JM: Did the jail screen your calls? Charles: The recorded message advised they could be recorded. m ray: yes Leon: Not sure but probably recorded. Jean: The jail didn't screen the calls. Well, actually, they may have. They
could have from some other source, but it's just a pay telephone.
On every floor, wherever there's a populated area, there are
phones. You have no access to a phone book either. Accountant: Possibly. Hot attorney: Probably. Cam: Yes.. big boi: i dont know
Only in an emergency, and only if you go through the jail lieutenant. If you call the public info phone line they should be able to transfer your call to the lieutenants office if its an emergency otherwise your best bet is to write a letter or wait until they call you.
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someone is not turning on phones everyday. iwish i could find out who s job it is or where to complain sometimes the phones work and then for 3 days they cant call out just hear us saying hello hello ive got
at
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my fiance is in the dallas kays unit and i found a call site called conscallhome which is a really cheap way to call your phone from jail. but can that be used? its a prepaid system that u put money on and it gives you a direct phone # line that forwards to your phone. i really want to use it cause its super cheap. has anyone heard of this and can you use it?
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my wife and i both use a cell phone, no land line. lately, we've been getting calls from this dallas county phone line. i looked up the number on the internet, and it always pops up to this county jail phone number. are inmates regularly using arbitrary numbers to make their calls go through? if we don't know the number, we don't answer it. what's odd, all day long yesterday, my wife's cell goes off from this same number. when we don't answer it, my cell suddenly starts ringing from the same number, 1-800-913-6097. who could possibly be doing this?
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Someone in jail gave your number away(or wrote it down somewhere) and even if you accidentally answer it tells you that if you don't know anyone in Dallas Co jail to hang up. My cousin was in jail at one point and gave my number to someone in jail. I think if you call your cell provider they can block the number.
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