Inmate Phone Service Rate to Drop; OKs 2-Year Contract with Provider

CREST HAVEN – A contract extension to Nov. 15 was approved by freeholders Sept. 25 with Securus Technologies Inc., which provides telephone service for inmates at the Cape May County Correctional Center. 
The extension, from a 2013 contract which awarded the firm the task of providing the phone service and jail management system, was because the jail is not completed, although it was anticipated to be operational by Sept. 30.
When the new contract becomes effective Nov. 16 it is expected that phone call rates will drop to six cents per minute.
Purchasing Agent Kevin Lare told the board a new state law went into effect mid-contract. Under the law, he said, the inmate cannot be charged more than 11 cents per minute for a call.
Freeholder Will Morey noted the rate “sounds great, it’s lower than the cap.” He cited a resident’s prior claim to the board that the present charges to inmates for phone calls was excessive.
Warden Donald Lombardo told the board of the importance of “investigatory facets of (phone) software.” That’s because the Prosecutor’s Office will listen to conversations to gain intelligence from inmates’ calls.
Lombardo also cited the importance of having inmates be able to contact their loved ones and others. There is no commission being made, he said, so the telephone service for inmates was termed “a service contract.”
“If the phones go down in the jail it’s like a food service problem,” he said. Then there are fights, injuries and litigation, all stemming from lack of phone service, Lombardo said.
Lombardo said one of three bidders for phone service provision is on a state contract, and that firm is one of the bidders to provide the county with its phone service. He added that his experience, based on five and a half years with the firm, showed “nothing negative” in the present provider, Securus Technologies Inc.
After awarding the contract extension the board, in another resolution, awarded a two-year contract, which will begin Nov. 16 to Securus Technologies Inc. to provide inmate phone service at the new correctional center. Additionally, the board may, at its pleasure, award three one-year options.