 In the early 1980s, the cost of prison phone calls were actually pretty comparable to calls on the outside, because calls in general were expensive. Back then, AT&T had a monopoly on phone service, and the cost of a call varied a lot depending on how long it was, the distance, the time of day, or the week you called. Bianca Tylick is head of Worth Rises, which is a group that does advocacy on various criminal justice issues.