New York Times-April 7, 2012-Making Crime Pay-Prison Consultants

April 22, 2012 - PRLog -- New York Times-April 7, 2012, Making Crime Pay

Michael Frantz, Director of Jail Time Consulting, a federal prison consulting service, was questioned by Matt Richtel of the New York Times concerning the thriving prison consulting business. The article in part states:

A Web site is where Vickie Skidmore, 58, stumbled onto Michael Frantz, an ex-convict who runs Jail Time Consulting. Ms. Skidmore was seeking help getting a transfer and some medical assistance for her son, Marcus Rosenberger, 36, sentenced recently to 33 months on several counts of wire fraud related to real estate transactions in Florida.

She talked to several consultants and settled on Mr. Frantz, she said, because he listened to her, sounded intelligent and lived in her home state. And he’d done time.

“I asked lawyers to help me, but they don’t understand what goes on in the inside,” she said.

One consultant, not a prior inmate but a prior prison guard, stated, “You think a warden is going to change a decision based on advice from a former resident?”

The ex-convicts in the business see things differently, arguing that relevant experience matters.

Mr. Frantz, of Jail Time Consulting, prefers this metaphor: “If you have to have someone take your appendix out, would you go to a guy that runs a gas station?”

Mr. Frantz, 65, earned his nearly 36 months of experience in a federal prison camp and a  low security prison in Miami after pleading guilty to tax evasion and Medicare-fraud charges.

He hired a prison consultant, and the experience led to an epiphany: crime could indeed pay. He decided to become a consultant himself.

Besides, his options were limited. “I knew when I got out, I’d be 62 years old, a convicted felon”, he said. “Who the hell was going to hire me?”

While in prison, he spent time in the law library, learning about penal regulations. He wrote “Jail Time,” http://jailtimeconsulting.com/jail-time-book.php a book about what to expect in federal prison that he published in 2009, a year after he was released, and started Jail Time Consulting. It was promptly shut down by a judge, who suspended the operation until Mr. Frantz ended his supervisory release in 2011.

In this business, bad news is just another marketing opportunity. Mr. Frantz’s Web site now reads: “Jail Time—the book a United States District Judge doesn’t want you to read.”

Like other prison consultants, he questions his competitors’ business practices. Their rates, he says, can be outrageous.

“You want a transfer, I’ll charge you $625, for goodness sake,” he said. “Other people are charging $2500. Come on!”

Do consultants make a difference?

They certainly can, according to people who work in the criminal justice system. A sharp consultant, they say, can help with complicated paperwork, in much the same way that a college consultant can help a family navigate complicated financial aid forms.


About Michael Frantz

Michael Frantz is a leading national Federal Prison Consultant and Director of JailTime Consulting LLC (JTC) in Florida. He also works with Robin Stover at the Prison Consulting Group (PCG). The staff of JailTime Consulting provides consultation services, research, sentence reduction strategies, and client positioning for many BOP programs. Michael has authored over thirty-five JT Special Reports© on various federal prison issues affecting both the inmate and his/her family which are available on the JailTime Consulting website. He is a nationally recognized federal prison authority and has published over sixty-five (65) articles nationwide. Mr. Frantz has been contacted as a federal prison expert resource by the Fox News Network, the Oprah Winfrey Channel, ABC’s 20/20 news show, the New York Times, and many television stations and radio stations nationwide. Michael’s best-selling federal prison guidebook; “What You Need to know…Before you go to Federal Prison” can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and many other bookstores nationwide. It can also be purchased in paperback and e-book format on his website. He provides current information to inmates, defendants, and their families in articles he writes for Jail Time Consulting on http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jail-Time-Consulting/251197..., Facebook. He also contributes timely news articles on Federal Prison Sentence Reduction Programs, new BOP policies that reduce prison sentences, new policies, programs, and other Federal Prison issues for defendants, inmates, and their families. Follow him and be kept up to date on the latest sentence reduction legislation, prison news, and BOP sentence reduction policy changes on Federal Prison Blog, http://jailtimeconsulting.blogspot.com/. Mr. Frantz can be reached by telephone at 954-522-2254 or you may contact him via email at mike@jailtimeconsulting.com.