Attorney-Client Calls by Jails
| Attorney-Client Calls by Jails | |
|---|---|
| Short Title | Attorney-Client Calls Recorded in 4 Jails in |
| Location | Maine, United States |
| Date | July 2020 |
| Solove Harm | Surveillance, Breach of Confidentiality, Disclosure, Insecurity |
| Information | Communication, Identifying, Computer Device |
| Threat Actors | Maine county jails, Attornies, Securus Technologies |
| Individuals | |
| Affected | Prisoners |
| High Risk Groups | Criminal |
| Tangible Harms | |
Maine jails recorded at least 837 private phone calls between attorneys and their incarcerated clients within a year from July 2019 to July 2020.
Description
In July 2020 four Maine county jails that detain defendants before trial were found to have recorded at least 837 confidential phone calls, and this number is believed to almost certainly represent an undercount. Breach of ConfidentialitySurveillance
County jails recorded most inmate calls, even though state law prohibits any interference with attorney-client calls, even by jail investigators.
It is unclear how many of these newly disclosed calls, if any, were erroneously handed to prosecutors. Those that were, are examples of Disclosure.
Some attorneys almost always communicated with their clients by phone. This can be interpreted as Insecurity. Even though it should not have been a barrier to his clients’ rights, attorneys didn’t explicitly ask the jail not to record their phone calls.
The Dallas-based company Securus Technologies is the provider for 13 county jails, said that it is attorneys and corrections employees responsibility to mark attorney-client calls as “private.”
Securus has since blocked the recording feature on all future calls made to the attorney phone numbers that were identified.