Talk is cheap. Not.

You’re happy. You’re sad. You’re confused. You’re excited. You need help. Your help is needed. What do you do? You talk to someone. You call someone. You reach out to communicate. Because that’s what we humans do.

But what if you can’t? What if you’re in solitary confinement cut off from human interaction, unable to do this essential thing we humans do?

In A Grip of Time I write about an ingenious, prison communications “system” known as the “toilephone.” Yes, a toilet. Communication between isolation cells involves using toilet plumbing pipes as conduits not for water or waste but for voice. It works like this: A prisoner in isolation flushes the toilet repeatedly until all the water exits the pipes, then sticks his head deep into the toilet bowl, alternately yelling and listening to someone at the other end of the pipe yell back. This is the length to which humans will go to communicate to other humans. That is how important communication is.

Now suppose you are in prison but not in segregation, and you have earned the “privilege” of making a phone call. How does that work?

In state-run prisons, the phone system for inmates is privatized. That is, for-profit companies contract with governmental agencies to provide hardware and software, cloud storage and monitoring. The contracts are based on a commission model, with the provider paying a commission (essentially a kickback) to the governmental agency. These kickbacks, which inflate the costs of the phone calls, are most often paid not by prisoners but by their family members. In Oregon, where I live, phone calls made from a state prison cost $2.40 for 15 minutes, making the state 36 out of 51 for affordability. An Oregon prisoner (inmates are required by state law to be employed) earns between 5 and 47 cents an hour.

I was going to say “you do the math,” but allow me: Using the average wage of 21 cents an hour, a prisoner would have to work more than 10 hours to pay for a 15-minute phone call. If a minimum-wage worker in Oregon used wages earned from 10 hours of work to pay for a 15-minute call, that call would cost $107.50. Oh, and these private phone providers can also extract additional profits by charging consumers (that is, the family members) fees to open, maintain, add funds to or close accounts, or to listen to voice mails.

For those in prison, maintaining ties with friends and loved ones is vital to mental and emotional health, and a key to successful release/ re-entry in the future. (And ongoing conversations with legal counsel can be potentially life-changing.) But we make it expensive and burdensome for that to happen. We make families pay. And we make those in solitary confinement (a practice deemed cruel and unusual punishment by international law) stick their heads down toilets.