FCC Approves Law Ending High Costs of Prison Phone Calls

“Contact between inmates and their loved ones has been shown to reduce the rate of recidivism, but high inmate calling rates have made that contact unaffordable for many families, who often live in poverty”.

Most of us talk on the phone every day, and we rarely think about the cost of a single call.

Under the new rules, calls from state and federal prisons will be capped at a much more reasonable .65 for 15 minutes.

“We’re very excited that the Federal Communications Commission voted to cap the rates of all calls home from prisons and jails as well as ban abusive fees”.

Maine advocates welcomed the new rules.

“It’s not just about dollars and cents and telephones, it’s really about opening up communication between the land of the living and the land of the dead”, he said, in slightly dramatic fashion. The FCC also strongly discouraged the providers’ practice of paying commissions to the prison facility in exchange for the phone service contract – fees critics refer to as kickbacks. “Some of that money is supposed to be going back to the inmates”. New Hanover County makes a 49 percent commission on inmate phone calls, and other local jails get similar commissions.

“Telephone service is not required by law for the inmates”, he said.

“The problem of it is the FCC has certain authorities to regulate state-to-state rates”, he said. The companies will not only collect less per call, but they lost their bid to bar prisons and jails from charging them commissions to access their captive markets. In a few jurisdictions, calls had cost up to $14 a minute.

A judge referred the suit to the FCC, which led to Thursday’s ruling.

“There’s no more excuses, no more justification for inaction, that puts every other priority of this agency above the well being of our children”, says FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who has long championed capping inmates’ phone rates, during the sometimes-emotional hearing.

“In passing the most comprehensive reforms to date to the prison phone industry, champions like Commissioner Clyburn listened to those long considered voiceless-the families of the 2.4 million people incarcerated in the United States”, said Malkia A. Cyril, Executive Director at the Center for Media Justice and Co-Founder of the Media Action Grassroots Network.

The Latino advocacy group, the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), hailed the FCC’s vote as a “major step in combating the unjust financial burden placed on incarcerated people and their families”, in a statement released to Latin Post.

The FCC ruling might actually hurt inmates, said Salzillo, because it “creates a situation where inmates will be deprived of much needed funding for things like treatment, rehabilitation programs, vocational, educational programs and recreational programs”.

Most inmates’ calling rates will drop to 11 cents per minute, though rates will be capped at higher prices in smaller prisons and jails. They have threatened to file a court challenge.