My name is Adam, and I’ve been in the Victorian Prison System for four and a half months. Now, before anyone accuses me of being a ‘Whinging Pom,’ I must admit that I’m actually from Wales, but I do like a good whinge!
However, before I get into my whining, I would like to pass on my congratulations to your team for the success of your newspaper. I find that your service helps give people a voice, and that’s really where my issue comes from because it would only affect a very small minority of inmates, so maybe this letter would get our voices heard.
My issue is around the cost of international calls from Victorian prisons, plus the lack of suitable times to actually make calls to Europe or other parts of the world.
Unless it's my imagination, the costs of international calls seem to differ every time! The most expensive call happened just two weeks ago from Metropolitan Remand Centre, where a six-minute call to the UK cost $20 dollars! With my weekly available spend being $32 from my kitchen wages, how can this be justified! I just read up about the announcement that calls are to be made cheaper, but unfortunately for me that doesn’t include international calls. People mention ‘engine numbers’, but you can’t have an international engine number.
Now let's mention the available call times. The doors open here at MRC at 9 am and close at 4:45 pm. However, when your only family lives in Europe, which is currently 11/10 hours behind, it means I’m already locked down by then. And when the clocks change in a few weeks (daylight savings) the times will work out to be even worse! Now as far as I’m aware it is a human right for international prisoners to be able to contact families. Yet MRC and other prisoners in Victoria seem to get around this by using the ‘snail mail’ loophole where it has taken up to five weeks for a letter to be received in the UK.
Whilst I appreciate that this issue only affects 0.01% of the prison population, I do find it hard to believe that this issue hasn’t been highlighted previously. I am sure that everyone in the 0.01% club would be very grateful to have an opportunity to book a once a week 2/3 am phone call in order to speak to our loved ones as I’m convinced that it would be easier on our mental health if this simple idea was put in place.
Thank you for putting up with my whinge, and may I pass on my best wishes to all my fellow inmates.
Please ‘keep the faith’ because one day our release day will arrive.
Yours faithfully,
Welsh Adam
My name is Adam, and I’ve been in the Victorian Prison System for four and a half months. Now, before anyone accuses me of being a ‘Whinging Pom,’ I must admit that I’m actually from Wales, but I do like a good whinge!
However, before I get into my whining, I would like to pass on my congratulations to your team for the success of your newspaper. I find that your service helps give people a voice, and that’s really where my issue comes from because it would only affect a very small minority of inmates, so maybe this letter would get our voices heard.
My issue is around the cost of international calls from Victorian prisons, plus the lack of suitable times to actually make calls to Europe or other parts of the world.
Unless it's my imagination, the costs of international calls seem to differ every time! The most expensive call happened just two weeks ago from Metropolitan Remand Centre, where a six-minute call to the UK cost $20 dollars! With my weekly available spend being $32 from my kitchen wages, how can this be justified! I just read up about the announcement that calls are to be made cheaper, but unfortunately for me that doesn’t include international calls. People mention ‘engine numbers’, but you can’t have an international engine number.
Now let's mention the available call times. The doors open here at MRC at 9 am and close at 4:45 pm. However, when your only family lives in Europe, which is currently 11/10 hours behind, it means I’m already locked down by then. And when the clocks change in a few weeks (daylight savings) the times will work out to be even worse! Now as far as I’m aware it is a human right for international prisoners to be able to contact families. Yet MRC and other prisoners in Victoria seem to get around this by using the ‘snail mail’ loophole where it has taken up to five weeks for a letter to be received in the UK.
Whilst I appreciate that this issue only affects 0.01% of the prison population, I do find it hard to believe that this issue hasn’t been highlighted previously. I am sure that everyone in the 0.01% club would be very grateful to have an opportunity to book a once a week 2/3 am phone call in order to speak to our loved ones as I’m convinced that it would be easier on our mental health if this simple idea was put in place.
Thank you for putting up with my whinge, and may I pass on my best wishes to all my fellow inmates.
Please ‘keep the faith’ because one day our release day will arrive.
Yours faithfully,
Welsh Adam
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