Federal regulators have cut the rates charged for phone calls between inmates and their families in Kentucky. What ensued was decades of “exorbitant fees, high phone rates and monopolistic relationships between public jails and private companies that openly [offered] kickbacks to local sheriffs”, according to the global Business Times.
Advertisement
The FCC today voted 3-2 to stop companies from ripping off prison inmates and their families.
But service providers criticized the move, saying it will financially cripple their companies.
The latest research from the Prison Phone Justice group, showed that previous year families in Illinois who called inmates paid the highest fees in the nation – about $13 million.
The proposal would decrease average rates more than 40 percent, to no more than $1.65 for a 15-minute call from prisons, according to the summary. The FCC says it also cut its existing cap on interstate long-distance calls by half. Interstate call rates in Maryland will go from 21 cents to 11 cents per minute.
“This FCC decision will affect Louisiana more than any other state, because we incarcerate more people per capita than any place on Earth”.
“In the end, we’ll have to abide by whatever federal rules are implemented”, DPS spokesman Gerard Shields said.
Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel said the FCC’s action would likely cost the jail budget more than $500,000 per year. Community Correction could stand to lose more, though, because of a new phone contract, she said. Collect calls will be slightly more expensive at first, and then those extra fees will be reduced over the next few years. That’s on top of the $1.57 charge for a ten-minute phone call.
The reforms received a boost last week when 15 senators endorsed the proposed rules in a letter to the FCC, blaming the current system for “incentivizing a regime in which prisons profit from charging inmates higher rates”. We lost the anti-trust claim and the case was remanded to the FCC. Projects the revenue has supported include installing additional cameras to comply with the Prison Rape Elimination Act, upgrading to stainless steel in showers and kitchens, buying security equipment and computers, renovating gyms, repairing roofs and upgrading fire alarms, among other things, she said.
Neither department receives commissions on out-of-state calls.
Securas Technologies provides service for all the county jails in the Wilmington area.
Or as author and Harvard doctoral candidate Clint Smith put it: “There are 2.7 million children who have at least one parent in prison”. She says she pays about $4.00 per call. “Rates are high because people want commissions”, he told NPR. “This will make it a lot easier for the families’ lives”.
“Telephone service is not required by law for the inmates”, he said.
Advertisement
California sheriffs worry that rates mandated by the FCC will be too low to let phone companies reimburse jails for costs such as monitoring inmate calls, as well as pay into a welfare fund for services such as education and counseling, said Cory Salzillo, legislative director for the California State Sheriffs’ Association.
