The concept of an expensive "long distance call" has been eradicated in every other aspect of life. It's too bad that prisoners and their families are being taken advantage of by the service providers here.
Actually that's not entirely true. There are a lot of places in the U. S. at least that still have very poor to no cell phone coverage, but do have landlines. In most of these places, calling to anywhere but the area around the nearest town is a long distance call (with a commonly 7 - 12 cent per minute charge on top of the monthly local phone access charges) -- unless you don't consider that expensive. Believe me it can add up quickly.
