NEW JAIL PHONE SYSTEM PROPOSED

Under a new proposal, every time a Cape Girardeau City Jail inmate makes a telephone call the city's general revenue fund would make money.

The proposal to allow the police department to install a new telephone system to do just that will be considered Monday by the Cape Girardeau City Council.

The phone system -- already in use in some other jails in the region -- would be a total collect-call system that charges the phone to which the inmate makes the call, said Police Chief Howard "Butch" Boyd Jr. And the system won't cost the city a dime, Boyd said, despite the installation of 14 additional phones -- one in each jail cell.

"The constitution says we have to let them make phones calls," he said. "It doesn't say the city has to pay for them."

Whether the inmate makes a local or long-distance call the other party would have to accept the charges like a collect call from a pay telephone. Boyd said the rates aren't extraordinarily high, but the phone company and the city would benefit by as much as $500 a month from the revenue collected from the calls of 20 inmates the jail houses on average.

"None of the equipment will cost the city," Boyd said. "I've been looking for a downside to this, and I just can't find it."

The phone system also would include a computer allowing the police department to monitor and, if necessary, block inmates from calling some telephone numbers. The system already comes with a block for 800- and 900-number calls, Boyd said.

The phone system also interests the police department because it would free the jailer to perform other tasks.

If an inmate wants to make a telephone call with the current phone system, the jailer must take the inmate out of the cell and down a hall to one of three phones where local calls are free but long-distance calls must be made collect, Boyd said.

With the proposed system, the inmate would be able to make telephone calls from his cell, avoiding the security risk of leaving the cell.

According to the contract submitted to the city council for consideration, the companies providing the phone system -- Southwestern Bell and Gateway Technologies -- would share 64 percent of the revenue collected from the calls. The city would be mailed a monthly check for 36 percent of the revenue collected.

Boyd said if the council approves the system, crews could install it this week.