FCC Passes Landmark Reform of 'Egregious' Prison Phone Charges (vice.com)

derekmead writes: The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to crack down on exorbitant prison phone rates, in a landmark victory for criminal justice reform advocates who have long criticized what they call abusive and predatory practices by phone companies. The new FCC rules cap the cost of prison phone calls at 11 cents a minute for debit or prepaid calls in state and federal prisons, and reduce the cost of most inmate calls from $2.96 to $1.65 for a 15-minute in-state call, and from $3.15 to $1.65 for a 15-minute long distance call. The new policy also cracks down on excessive service fees and so-called "flat-rate calling," in which inmates are charged a flat rate for a call up to 15 minutes regardless of the actual call duration.

Comments

11 cents a minute?

[rjstanford]

For a landline call? Still sounds pretty egregious to me. The prisoners already have to qualify for their calls, and from what I understand aren't allowed very many of them in the best cases. Why add another punishment on top of what they're already serving? There's no real reason to break out the phone calls and make them orders of magnitude more expensive to prisoners than they actually are.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[Fire_Wraith]

Sure there is - profit! The corporations involved in this have every reason to jack those rates as high as they can go, because the prisoners are quite literally a 'captive audience'. Privately run prisons are the worst about this, but even publicly operated prisons often contract out to private companies for things like telecommunication services.

What, you mean there are things like morals, ethics, and limits on what should be reasonable? What are you, some kind of Communist?

Re:11 cents a minute?

[quetwo]

In the business community, it's pretty common to still see rates of about $0.10/minute for long distance and $0.10/call for local calls. It's not a great rate, but it's not out of the ordinary. Business lines are still far from the unlimited/unlimited rates offered to consumers.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[tripleevenfall]

The prisons need to enable inmates to call only the numbers they've been authorized to call. Someone has to approve applications to enable telephone numbers. Someone needs to process the background information and telephone bills that are sent in to verify identities. Someone needs to manage the billing and payment aspects of all of this. Someone has to archive the recordings. etc etc. This operation is contracted out like anything else. The prison can't reasonably do this, nor should they be doing it.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[cdrudge]

Are the prison phone companies actually the ones doing all that though? I was under the impression that the phone companies involved were glorified calling cards that handled the finances of the phone call, but the security was up to the prison/jail/DOC still.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[geekmux]

For a landline call? Still sounds pretty egregious to me. The prisoners already have to qualify for their calls, and from what I understand aren't allowed very many of them in the best cases. Why add another punishment on top of what they're already serving? There's no real reason to break out the phone calls and make them orders of magnitude more expensive to prisoners than they actually are.

You question greed and capitalism in the privatized prison system running in the United States of Incarceration?

That's rather silly.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[Anonymous Coward]

The prisons need to enable inmates to call only the numbers they've been authorized to call.

News to me. I've gotten calls before from inmates and none of them ever mentioned needing to pre-authorize the number.

Someone has to approve applications to enable telephone numbers.

Why?

Someone needs to process the background information and telephone bills that are sent in to verify identities. Someone needs to manage the billing and payment aspects of all of this. Someone has to archive the recordings. etc etc. This operation is contracted out like anything else. The prison can't reasonably do this, nor should they be doing it.

Yeah, you're suffering from a bad case of privatazation-itis there. There is absolutely no reason that administrative staff could not be trained to manage such a system as part of their responsibilities except that the profitability of the private sector would suffer thereby. Just like there is *absolutely* no reason that the private sector should be able to run a prison at less cost than the government can. (Except by compromising reasonable wages and safety by so doing.)

Re:11 cents a minute?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

There is an argument for some additional cost(certain inmates are people who you have justifiable concerns about their communicating with confederates on the outside, so you probably need more oversight than a standard fully automated system).

Aside from that, though, there are reasons, just bad ones. You've got a captive audience, and you can bid to be the exclusive provider, so competition isn't a concern; and states looking to be tough on crime without paying for it are more than happy to treat prisoner phone calls, commisary purchases, etc. as a profit center.

It's horribly penny-wise, pound-foolish, of course because making it easier for inmates to maintain social bonds reduces recidivism at relatively low cost(obviously it isn't 100% effective; but landline minutes are hilariously cheap compared to even the most basic correctional staff, never mind any sort of specialists, so it's hard to argue with the value for money); but that isn't how the immediate incentives line up, so they do it anyway.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[xaxa]

Posting anon because I work in the industry; remember all of these calls have to be archived (sometimes in perpetuity) and inmates are *really* hard on phones (repairs come out of the profit). Small jails will potentially not be worth bidding at 11 cents a minute as 1 dispatch will eat 6 months revenue.

Regardless of the cost, it's not right to make the prisoners pay it. They don't pay for the guards, food, building, locks, why should they pay for a prison-grade telephone?

Re:11 cents a minute?

[LiENUS]

The prisons need to enable inmates to call only the numbers they've been authorized to call.

News to me. I've gotten calls before from inmates and none of them ever mentioned needing to pre-authorize the number.

Depends on the situation, I don't think the county/parish jail requires pre-authorized numbers, that way when you first get locked up you can call around to find a lawyer. But the big boy state prisons shouldn't be letting offenders just call you at random

Someone has to approve applications to enable telephone numbers.

Why?

Investigations checks out the number looking for things does this number belong to the offenders criminal contacts? Or the offenders victim/victims family? Those things get denied.

Someone needs to process the background information and telephone bills that are sent in to verify identities. Someone needs to manage the billing and payment aspects of all of this. Someone has to archive the recordings. etc etc. This operation is contracted out like anything else. The prison can't reasonably do this, nor should they be doing it.

Yeah, you're suffering from a bad case of privatazation-itis there. There is absolutely no reason that administrative staff could not be trained to manage such a system as part of their responsibilities except that the profitability of the private sector would suffer thereby. Just like there is *absolutely* no reason that the private sector should be able to run a prison at less cost than the government can. (Except by compromising reasonable wages and safety by so doing.)

Yeah all that stuff is handled by investigations in the prison I worked at. Storage may or may not have been onsite I couldn't say for sure as I didn't work in IT but they had a fairly substantial IT department and were miles away from the real world so I always assumed it was onsite.
The private prisons do in fact majorly reduce wages Captains at CCA prisons make less than Cadets in academy at the state prison I worked at make.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[rjstanford]

To use a tied phrase, "This." From what I've seen you are entirely correct in your assumptions, at least in many cases.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[Firethorn]

I remember reading an article on this. It's something of a mixed bag - some are indeed effectively calling card companies, leaving all admin up to the prison itself, but normally providing kickbacks to the prison.

In other cases, by contract they provide a 'complete service'. IE they own and are responsible for the 'complete' system. The prison officials are probably only in charge of authorizing phone numbers. IE signing that XYZ numbers are allowed for prisoner 123. The company provides(and maintains) the phones, phone lines, phone booths(for what privacy prisoners get), etc... If a phone breaks they're the ones responsible for fixing it.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[ShanghaiBill]

The prisons need to enable inmates to call only the numbers they've been authorized to call.

Last time I was in jail, there were no restrictions on who I could call. I don't see any need to maintain a "whitelist". A "blacklist" of numbers not to be called would be easier. But even then, it doesn't have to be enforced through the phone system. It could just be rule-based: You call your ex-girlfriend (the one you are in jail for beating up) and you will lose your phone privileges. Phone policies vary widely between different states, and even different prisons within states.

Inmates have lower recidivism rates when they keep social contacts with the family and friends. Isolating these people from society by restricting phone calls arbitrarily, and charging extortionate tolls, is not sensible policy.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[ShanghaiBill]

You question greed and capitalism in the privatized prison system running in the United States of Incarceration?

In America, about 8% of inmates are incarcerated in privately operated prisons. This issue has very little to do with privatization.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jail is not prison. State prisons (I was a CO) can and will restrict calls so you don't harass your accusers. All calls are recorded/screened.

Phone priv's were a pain in the ass... if an inmate got bad news or had an argument on the phone that means as a CO my stress level goes up.. will he start a fight? Attack the first person that sets them off??

Re:11 cents a minute?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because people who maintain their family connections and other support frameworks while in prison have a better chance at rehabilitiation and not re-offending than those who don't. Spend 30 seconds googling this and find out.

If you're ideologically driven, yes by all means punish them even if it means higher crime rates in the future. If you're results driven, then allow them to maintain family connections. It's a pretty simple decision to make regardless of what you're driven by.

Re:11 cents a minute?

[fafalone]

Phone policy varies wildly. In some jails, there's even phones right in the cells (4-6 inmates). They were turned on from 7am-11pm; you could talk your way through $60/day easily; and there was no "qualifying"... you could lose the privilege from abuse; but no approvals, no white lists reviewed by staff, no restriction on calling mobile numbers, etc. Could even have conference calls (against the phone companies policy, but unenforced).
Other places; 4 phones for 64 inmates with all sorts of restrictions on time of use (not during meals, lockdowns, searches, commissary, after lights out, etc). So after a call, back of the line, and good luck getting another one in before the next shut down. Every time the doors buzzed, everyone charged the phones like the bulls of Pamplona.
And god forbid you're in confinement (not just discipline... "protective custody", sex charges, medical, psych/suicide watch, juvenile, high profile case, etc, all can get you 23+ hrs/day solitary). MAYBE once per day you could talk an officer into wheeling the phone to the door so you can make a call through the slot... the cord too short to sit or stand, so you'd have to kneel on the concrete the whole time.

And all 3 of those scenarios was in just one jail... the only constant? The obscene expense. Broke inmates constantly begged and traded meals to get people with money in their phone account to dial children and wives.
Although the phone company did do one cool thing... video visitation over the internet with anyone, anywhere in the world for like $10 for a 1 hour visit (forget exact amount; but cheap compared to regular calls).

Re:11 cents a minute?

[wbr1]

As an ex prisoner you are right and wrong. While a majority of prisons are public, many services are privatized. Commissary, heath care, phones, industry, etc.

Good

[Zak3056]

The costs associated with jail/prison phone calls are ridiculous, and NO ONE has had any incentive to change that. The institutions get a cut, politicians don't want to me "soft on crime" and the net result is that a literally captive market, which has minimal to no resources, gets screwed into the ground.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of the FCC, but good job on their part.

Re:Good

[gstoddart]

As long as people continue to believe this stuff should be ran as profit centers, this is what will happen. The Sheriff gets kickbacks, the companies who run the prisons get kickbacks.

It has nothing to do with punishment or rehabilitation, but ensuring you have as many people in prison as possible to maximize profits.

America has 20% of the world prisoner population, because America has made it profitable to keep people in prison; it's an industry worth tens of billions of dollars, and which uses prisoners as cheap labor.

It's far too profitable to stop. And it has nothing at all to do with the reason for prisons in the first place.

Essentially it's a giant tax-payer funded industry which doesn't offer much benefits to the tax-payer, and doesn't solve any problems.

But states look at them as revenue sources, and keep doing it.

This has been true for a very long time.

not enough

[BradMajors]

A simpler and fairer solution could have been the requirement that the price charged for inmate calls must equal the price charged for prison staff calls.

Re:not enough

[cdrudge]

So you want prisoners to continued to be screwed over, while also screwing over the prison staff as well?

Good I guess

[MBGMorden]

The story mentions prisons - I'm not sure if short-term jails are included in this but I hope so.

While I've never personally had to make any calls, my sister was arrested (DUI) once, and being a nervous wreck was calling me - nearly hourly- until we got bail posted. The collect calls - often lasting no more than 2-3 minutes, were charged at a flat rate of $15 per call. A one night stay ended up costing me over $200 just in collect phone call charges before I eventually just had to tell her that I wouldn't accept any more calls.

Re:Good I guess

[MalleusEBHC]

I was arrested for contempt of cop once, and I had a similar experience. When I tried to call my family, they all told me that they got an automated recording with instructions to create an account and pay for the collect call to a cell phone. While they were trying to navigate this onerous system for the opportunity to pay exorbitant amounts of money to talk to me, I'm sitting in a jail cell wondering if I'm ever going to get a hold of them.

Getting arrested is traumatic enough already, and the assholes trying to wring dollars out of a captive audience make it that much worse. Kudos to the FCC for taking a significant step to remedy the problem.

Let's go after addiction treatment centers next

[Anonymous Coward]

$8.00 in quarters for a 4 minute phone call once per week, when the facility was already bilking my insurance more than $500/day for me to be there. Absolute nonsense, worse than the prisons in the article were charging. I wish I'd been able to take a picture of that payphone and its rate card to be featured on the back of 2600.

When you're down and out in America, that's when they'll fuck you the most.

Re:Long Distance? Seriously?

[Darinbob]

Well, they "should" do that. But almost all prisons used one of two different services. Those services jacked up the rates, then kicked back a share of the profits to the prisons to ensure that they continued to have the business. The prisons were not the ones paying any per-minute fees. They don't care how much the prisoners end up paying, and they're unlikely to shop around for better service out of the goodness of their hearts.

Back in the day.... Hotels

[essbase_nerd]

Remember the 1990s, before everyone had a cell phone, and hotels charged around $2.00 for a local call, and $2.00 + $2.00/minute for domestic long distance?

I do, I was a hotel general manager at the time, and it was common to see a $25, $50, even $100 dollars in long distance calls on a guest room folio. If the guest complained, we'd give them a 50% discount, and still make out like bandits. I say bandits, because we were practically robbing the guests. I hated it, but had no control over the company-wide phone contracts and required fees.

Everything "law" related is egregious

[WaffleMonster]

Lawyers, monitoring/ankle bracelets, ignition interlocks, "bail bonds", calling. I talked to someone a few months ago running a prison phone system. The basic gist many jails farm management out to one of a few providers who charge obscene rates and get away with it because those running the prisons don't care and don't want to deal with it. The very same story constantly repeats itself in government purchasing and health care. When its not your money you unsurprisingly tend not to care.

What is more egregious are stories I've heard first hand about ankle bracelets and how companies are able to get judges to basically demand a specific provider be used who unsurprisingly charge insane rates. Buy this or jail == $$$$$$$ profit $$$$$$$$

Sure it does

[rsilvergun]

It's totally sensible policy. Higher recidivism means higher profits for private prisons and the industry around them. You gotta keep those non-violent offenders coming back. You can't make good money off just the violent psychos, too expensive to house and you'll never get your fees out of 'em since they're crazy.

Not really

[rsilvergun]

Prison staff would just use their cell phone or (worst case) wait till their shift is over since, well, it's not like they're prisoners or anything. You're also assuming the wage slaves working for $15/hr at a prison have any pull, which is just silly.

This is why I hate 'simple' solutions. The sound good but are almost always unworkable. Yours was a little easier to point out the problems with, try doing the same with something like Supply Side Economics...