State Hangs Up The Line On Inmate Information Convicted Rapist Sent Christmas Card To Woman Caller Seeking A Campground Map

A telemarketing job program for prison inmates has been suspended after a convicted rapist sent a suggestive Christmas card to a woman who had called and given her address for campground information.

The state Department of Corrections also has suspended two other contracts where inmates answered phones for state agencies, said department spokesman Veltry Johnson.

The Christmas card incident involved an inmate at the Clallam Bay Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison. The woman had called the state Parks and Recreation Department’s toll-free line last spring for a campground map. In mid-December, the inmate sent her a card.

While the telemarketing program is suspended, the lines are being handled by office staff members.

The state parks and recreation hotline - the largest of the three telemarketing contracts - was launched two years ago as part of a wide-ranging effort to better market the state’s 82 campgrounds.

Parks officials decided to hire inmates to save money, said parks spokeswoman Sue Zemek. Handling the line in-house or contracting it out to a private agency would have cost about twice as much, she said.

In the last two years, inmates have answered more than 160,000 calls on the parks hotline, Zemek said. Until now, there have been no complaints, she said.

There have been no problems reported with the other two contract lines, Johnson said.

For the state Department of Ecology, prisoners were answering callers’ questions about where to get automobile emissions tests. Under the other contract, inmates gave callers information about programs and degrees offered at the state’s community and technical colleges.

All three of the contracts were handled by inmates at Clallam Bay. They are paid from 35 cents to $1.10 an hour. In none of the programs did the inmates identify themselves as such to callers.

Howard Yarbrough, who manages correctional industries for the department, acknowledged that officials were reevaluating the wisdom of having a telemarketing program at a prison where convicted rapists and killers are among those answering the phones.

“I have the same concerns. And we’re taking a hard look at every step of the program. This is not a good thing,” Yarbrough said.

As part of the review, state officials are considering whether inmates should identify themselves as prisoners when answering the calls.

The inmate who sent the Christmas card, Parker Stanphill, was serving a 10 years, nine months sentence for a 1994 first-degree rape conviction. He has been placed in solitary confinement.

The issue of inmates answering telephone lines for state agencies or private corporations has received considerable attention recently.

In November, ABC-TV’s “20/20” reported that a major airline has inmates answer its toll-free reservation number. In that case, according to “20/20,” inmates are recording callers’ credit card information as well as their names and addresses.

In Washington state, only one private company, Washington Marketing Group, uses inmates to place calls, Yarbrough said.

The Monroe-based company uses inmates exclusively to handle everything from get-out-the-vote drives to charity fund raisers, said Ken DuCharme, superintendent at the Washington State Reformatory.