In March, reported Rob Wildeboer of Chicago’s WBEZ radio station broke the news that inmate in Cook County prisons (including those in the city of Chicago) were being charged inflated phone rates due to a profit-generating contract between the county and Securus Technologies, the company that operates the jail phone service. The contract requires Securus to pay 57.5% of the revenue from phone calls back to the county, an arrangement that netted the county $12 million from outgoing calls from inmates over the life of the three-year contract.