Penitentiary legislation recognizes the right of inmates to "periodically communicate" with their family, friends and lawyers except in case of judicial limitation.Those contacts - considerate keys for the social and emotional well -being of the inmates and, consequently, for coexistence in prisons - take place through family or intimate meetings and, especially, of telephone calls.Calls that, however, have a “too high” price according to experts and lawyers.
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Penitentiary institutions confirms Eldiario.is that an eight -minute call from jail can cost to 2.45 euros.That is the price of mobile communications during normal hours (Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.), which are usually the most common according to the sources consulted.
The price is reduced to 1.70 euros for eight minutes if the call is made to a mobile from reduced hours (Monday to Friday from 0 to 8 hours and from 20 to 24 hours and Saturdays, Sundays and holidays throughout the day).Fixed calls are cheaper: 0.28 euros for eight minutes in the same province and 1.13 if it is the rest of the national territory.From the pandemia, the prisoners can make 15 calls a week - before there were ten - and each of them can last eight minutes.Therefore, if an inmate uses the maximum of telephone communications that are allowed could get to spend weekly up to 36.75 euros.Monthly, the amount would be around 150 euros.
According to the information provided by penitentiary institutions, these prices, which were reduced in March 2020, are somewhat below what it costs to call from other public payment phones such as the cabins installed in the streets.However, they are well above the rates that can be found in the free market, where plans at closed price with unlimited calls are abounded both to fixed and mobile.
Each prisoner has ten numbers authorized by the management and costs their communications through the so -called accounts of the peculiain prison workshops, in case they perform them.The weekly spending limit is set at 100 euros.And with that balance they must face these calls and purchases they make in the economy.
In addition, in penitentiary institutions they explain that the prisons and social insertion centers dependent on the Ministry of Interior have subsidies to give “punctual” aid for telephone communications, among other circumstances, to whom they have no resources.And the law also provides for face -to -face visits from relatives and lawyers.
Millionaire benefits
The current service provider is Telio Iberia Slu, a company dedicated exclusively to the commercialization, installation, management and exploitation of public use telecommunications in penitentiary institutions.The company, whose matrix is in Holland, was constituted in September 2016 after the partial split of Telefónica Telecomunicaciones Publicas, the historic subsidiary of Telefónica Cabinas.
The contract dates back to 1994, when it was awarded to Telefónica.Since then it has been updated several times, the last in 2019.That year, the physical card system for the payment of the calls changed to one of digital pin through an addendum by which an urgent digitalization was agreed.The idea is to get the service again, confirm from prison institutions.
The information deposited in the Mercantile Registry accounts for the beneficial business that involves managing calls from prison.Telio Iberia Slu billing reached in 2019/2020 the 10.46 million euros and its benefits were 5.03 million.That is, the company won almost half of what it invoiced.A result that exceeded that of the previous year, in which the net amount of the business figure was 9.69 million and the benefits reached 4.46 million euros.The accounts also collect the distribution of 1.46 million in dividends charged to the year 2019/2020 and do not reflect the existence of salaried personnel.
The company's revenues "correspond mainly to the sale of telephone cards to the prison centers located in the national territory," the accounts collect.The income from the sale of these cards reached in the last audited year 10.9 million euros, to which 684 must be subtracted.000 euros in "Prepaid card discounts".
The company's own memory reflects that its turnover was “fired” in March 2020 for the preceding months because society advised the prison centers to increase card orders to the possible difficulty of supplying them during confinement during the confinement.
To the Eldiario questions.It is, a spokesman for Telio Iberia Slu explains that the prices of the so -called "obey what the law marks" while there are regulated prices of a base rate published by the telephone operator of Spain for rates at home, there areA regulated surcharge for public use telephony and finally the penitentiary centers have a price with a discount on the previous regulated.
"Disproportionate" rates
Many inmates consider the price of calls from prison excessive.“These rates force family membership to make a very big effort.In my case, my wife and my mother.I never made use of all calls due to lack of means and my lawyer only called it if it was very urgent.But there were other colleagues who could barely communicate due to lack of money, ”says a man who spent three years and a month in the centers of Seville I and Huelva and who prefers not to be identified.
"Someone is getting enriched at the expense of the most helpless.It is inconceivable and impossible to pay 150 euros on calls monthly.The right to communicate of the inmates exists but only for the rich or family members who sacrifice themselves, ”says the relative of another inmate who also asks for anonymity.
Telephone rates from prison are also "disproportionate" for lawyer Marina Fernández, who remembers that the majority of the prison population comes from vulnerability situations and that, on many occasions, their economic, family and social possibilities are precarious."It is very unfair.Contact with the outside is key to people who are deprived of liberty.Many of them also have psychological or drug use problems, ”says this lawyer.Mobile calls, which are the highest price, are the most common according to their experience."Many lawyers do not even have fixed phones," he says.