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Court Stops FCC's Latest Attempt To Lower Prison Phone Rates (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Prison phone companies have convinced a court to halt new rate caps on inmate calling for the second time this month. The first stay was issued March 7 and prevented the FCC from implementing new rate caps of 11 cents to 22 cents per minute on both interstate and intrastate calls from prisons. But the stay -- which remains in place while the prison phone companies' lawsuit against the FCC is still pending -- did not disturb an earlier "interim" cap of 21 cents to 25 cents per minute that applied only to interstate calls, those that cross state lines. The order also didn't specifically object to the FCC changing its definition of "inmate calling service" to include both interstate and intrastate calls. Seizing on this ambiguity, the FCC decided that it could impose the interim caps on both interstate and intrastate calls. But prison phone companies Securus Technologies, Global Tel Link (GTL), and Telmate all asked the federal appeals court to stop the caps from being applied to intrastate calls. A court order issued Wednesday sided with the prison phone companies, saying that "petitioners have satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review." As a result, the interim rate caps will still apply only to interstate calls.
They're allowed access to their finances? Does this create a rift in equality? Why don't they just get an allotment of minutes?
Call this out of state number and it'll bounce back to your wife five miles from your current location!
used to enforce racism.
They really hate it when they get regulation on a 'captive' market.
The "religion of peace" you're criticizing has 3 million followers in the United States. The people who argue with you know more about math than you do.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
So do Christians and Jews.
Deuteronomy 17
If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; 17:3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 17:4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; 17:5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.
This being the same "Interstate Commerce Clause" that the federal government has decided that it can use to regulate the growth and possession of marijuana for personal use "because there is interstate traffic in it and local production would impact that interstate traffic".
Ha ha.
AC
In some areas like New York City, where, if one doesn't have the cash to make bail, they can wind up in jail for 2+ years waiting for a trial. This isn't hurting just the evil old convict that everyone loves to bash on, but people whose biggest crime is not making enough money. To boot, it doesn't just hurt the inmate, but family who has to keep cash on the books (and unless one is either gang affilated, or can kick ass, the first thing a new "fish" finds on entering Riker's is that he starts to owe people money because he is drawing air near them, and if those debts are not paid often, he gets a facial rearrangement or perhaps a few slashes or two to the face as a reminder who is in charge.)
It doesn't take much to wind up in jail in NYC. Appearing a tad drunk can get one locked up, and by the time they appear in front of the judge, even the maximum punishment is already handed down via time served.
38"This is the great and foremost commandment. 39"The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' 40"On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."
Neither math nor the number of Muslims living in the US has anything to do with this.
Wanna bet?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Contact to family is important for prisoners, because reducing contact increases risk of ending up in prison again (this is a well documented fact)
Prison administrators, state governments, all have interest in increasing prisons contact with family, why they allow this is beyond my imagination.
Companies offering phone services really ought to not exploit prisoners who don't have any choices (it's simply plain evil - particularly when considering the risk they put those prisoners at).
Why the FCC needs to be involved is beyond my understanding. Are all the prison administrators really that corrupt?
No, not Gentile Christians. That is a very common mistake.
"Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood." -- Acts 15:19-21
See also: Noachide Laws
That's a pretty strange slander-lation you got there. I went with a translation instead and found:
The context was that they were under attack and being threatened with death.
You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock.
Nothing spreads evil faster than a goat who drank the sweet nectar of the Other Gods.
This country was founded on slavery and that damn 14th amendment put a damper on things, Thanks to the war on drugs, increasing prison sentences, and our privatized prison system, we're finally managing to make america great again!
And the same God is worshiped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims. We're also not living in ancient Israel where the rule of law was weak and administered by kings or self appointed judges.
Yes, the prison administrators really are corrupt. These are the same administrators that already contract out convicts as slave labor.
Why the FCC needs to be involved is beyond my understanding. Are all the prison administrators really that corrupt?
Yes. Anything they can do to make a buck. I've never done any time, and am generally law-abiding; but I think it's best to post AC because if I ever get in, no need to piss them off. Welcome to the land of the Free.
Don't like it? Well Bernie's promised to put an end to the for-profit prison industry. No one else seems to be campaigning on it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
...if the prisoners don't like the phone company's terms, they can always vote with their feet. Oh, wait.
"Companies offering phone services really ought to not exploit prisoners..."
Why do you hate capitalism?
Cellphones, VoIP, and even cable company's phone (albeit it is a monthly flat rate) have done away with pay per minute long distance. Why not these companies?
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Can anyone think of a reason calls shouldn't be FREE? It costs next to nothing to offer comms services these days thanks to the internet. Costs orders of magnitude less than lighting... costs less than that bleach they slop across the floor every night...
You're that ninja...
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
> Prison administrators, state governments, all have interest in increasing prisons contact with family, why they allow this is beyond my imagination.
Two things...
You have a shitty imagination and they're not interested in reducing recidivism. Gotta keep those beds full, it keeps the budget justified and growing. (The whole for-profit thing is an aside and not really important, all told, those are only less than 10% and, while retarded, they're not the driving force.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
While Bernie's position is noble, its sadly just another of his false promises.. Prisons are a state issue and responsibility, which he, even if elected president, even with a majority in all the houses, would have little influence over.
Not only was his translation slanderous (I found the exact quote from a white supremacist web site), but the the section of the Koran he quotes is from a section that deals with a code of behavior for waging war when war is being waged against you.
You are welcome on my lawn.
American Flags are made in prisons by people paid $2 an hour. You like having your flag that says "Made in the USA." Remember, it's still made my slaves.
Exactly! People forget Sanders also talks about arming Jordanians, giving the "war back to them" and all that other Clinton/Obama bullshit. He is a war monger just like his predecessors. Nothing will be different under him. Obama never closed Gitmo, still bombed the fuck out of eastern states, faked a Bin Laden assassination, created ISIL/ISIS, passed Romney-care (which puts all the profits in the hands of for-profit health care) and has generally be just as evil and corrupt as every person behind him.
False promises are a part of the deal. When a candidate promises to be pro-life, you're an idiot for voting down that line because the only way to change Roe vs Wade has nothing to do with the president; it requires either a new supreme court decision or a constitutional amendment.
I think if a particular prison's recidivism rates are too high, that they should not be permitted to charge more than 1 cent per minute.
If a prison is successful, then they should be permitted more leeway in how they operate.
Of course allowing prisoners to have more frequent contact with family members, has been shown to improve a convict's chances of staying out of prison when they get out.
(excellent rates for recidivism would be anything under 20%, typical in a US prison is 70%)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
MSG version:
If you find anyone within the towns that God, your God, is giving you doing what is wrong in God’s eyes, breaking his covenant by going off to worship other gods, bowing down to them—the sun, say, or the moon, or any rebel sky-gods—look at the evidence and investigate carefully. If you find that it is true, that, in fact, an abomination has been committed in Israel, then you are to take the man or woman who did this evil thing outside your city gates and stone the man or the woman. Hurl stones at the person until dead.
This passage surely describes the evil one.
American Flags are made in prisons by people paid $2 an hour. You like having your flag that says "Made in the USA." Remember, it's still made my slaves.
Wow! They have an exclusive contract for all American flags made in America? And such a terrible thing not to pay murderers and rapists union wages. IT'S A TRAVESTY!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Is it corruption if the money goes to the institution and not into the administrator's pockets? The firms that gouge prisoners offer "facility commissions" to share their revenue with the prisons.
JPay has been reported to entertain wardens lavishly, but I haven't heard of actual bribery.
Whoosh.
The OP pointed out that the Qur'an has passages that call for a violent response to non-believers. The GP was pointing out that the Old Testament/Torah have passages that call for the same thing.
There are billions of followers of the three major Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam.) Only a tiny (and IMHO, deluded) fraction of them subscribe to violence as a way to advance their cause.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
You drank it too? Man, that stuff tastes GREAT! Where can I get more?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
When a candidate promises to be pro-life, you're an idiot for voting down that line because the only way to change Roe vs Wade has nothing to do with the president; it requires either a new supreme court decision or a constitutional amendment.
Who appoints supreme court justices?
I see nobody has any actual experience dealing with prison calls. It's all the usual claptrap that people have heard somewhere online and are repeating. Long ago I used to work for a company that collected past-due phone bills. It was mundane work, just call them and remind them they're overdue, will be cut off from the carrier if they don't pay by a certain date, etc. Nothing threatening or weird. Once in a while we would get a batch of jail calls, all made collect from the jailhouse phones. The reaction on these was different. Usually the person who answered was a woman, and more than once she was relieved that we would be cutting her off from these calls.
She couldn't pay for them anyway, and the man inside didn't give a shit. He was bored, or controlling, and would call again and again. I had the call records and the guy would call for 15 minutes, get automatically cut off, call again, and again, and again. Day after day after day. Something the "they neeeed to talk to their faaaamilies!!!" crowd apparently has totally failed to consider. Maybe their families don't want to talk to them because they're horrible manipulative evil people who belong in prison.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Grow the fuck up.
That's Quran 8:59-60. (and a very 'opportunisitic' transalation too,
Quran 8:61 (ie... the VERY next sentence)
"And if they incline to peace, then you (also) incline to it, and put (your) trust in Allah".
Talk about twisting a passage to suit your bullshit.
It essentially says "if you are attacked muster all your forces to defend yourselves, but make peace with those that come in peace".
Seriously... that's about as American as apple pie.
. Nothing will be different under him.
What? You think the Jordanians and Syrians are going to stop fighting because some rich people, on a different continent, elected a new leader? The US already funds the rebels in Syria; as always to help the militants they like, kill the militants they don't like. What's the alternative: Desert the country and hope some Taliban or ISIL/ISIS faction doesn't take power? It's a "dammed if you do, dammed if don't" situation, requiring a flexibility in diplomacy the USA has never understood and can never achieve.
It was a shitty deal that was better than the alternative. How about you blame the Democrat politicians who supported privatization more than uniform healthcare, or the Republican politicians who blocked every political policy he offered?
Obama never closed Gitmo ...
Obama never had that power, so once again, blame your politicians. More important, Obama never promised to end the water-boarding , it was just assumed. He also never promised to give prisoners their day in court. It was a feel-good promise that didn't help the prisoners, and in reality, he couldn't effect.
So whining about it won't help. What the USA needs is a tool to move the political discourse away from vote-buying,corporate subservience and screaming "Nazi" every time a politician disagrees with the politically conservative dogma that has ruled the USA for the 70 years.
The US supreme court also doesn't offer a lot of flexibility in their job. They tend to make one-size-fits-all mandates even when the outcome is nonsensical. The politicians have moved past this decision, although you are free to make it a election issue.
Senate.
And how many of them would prefer Shari'a to be the law of the land?
All muslims are terrorists when none speak against the so-called "evil minority."
but hey, nothing to lose your head over, right?
I agree that it's in the interest of authorities to make it as easy as possible for these guys to communicate with family, both for eventual rehabilitation, but also for law-enforcement intel gathering.
"really ought to not exploit prisoners who don't have any choices"
Well, their first choice was not to commit a crime and go to prison, don't you think?
-Styopa
seems if family went to next state and got a burner phone with an out of state number, then inmate could call that line and save $$. At the jacked up rates for in-state calls, it would probably pay for itself in 5 minutes.
Good job on quoting only part of something and completely failing to understand it.
Meanwhile, later in the Bible...
Colossians 2:13, 14:
The Jews proved long ago that they were unwilling to follow the law, which is why they were rejected by God. Jesus fulfilled the law, so it no longer applies. That means Christians are under no obligation to that law. The Mosaic law, however "silly" you think it was, is not an actively observed code of conduct by anyone anymore. Unlike the Koran, which has millions of active followers for the insane things it actually says.
I don't know that I agree with equating prison with slavery?
First off, if you're paid *anything* as compensation for doing a job, it's not slavery anymore, by definition. Second, I'm not sure that prison has a requirement of doing these jobs? It sounds to me like they're voluntary .... with inmates waiting in line for opportunities to do them because they'd rather have a little bit of money than nothing at all.
None of this means I support the high cost of making phone calls from a prison. Personally, I suspect that's just legal extortion on the part of the companies who came up with the whole system -- and eventually, it will get overturned by the court system. (There's no free marketplace here where prisoners can choose their favorite phone carrier to get the best rates. It's clearly a monopoly, and as such, needs to be regulated to ensure it's not charging above a fair market price for the service rendered.)
But just saying .... it's disingenuous to label prison labor as "slavery". Every one of those inmates was original a citizen with all of the rights and freedoms that came with it. They did things to violate the rights of others around them in order to wind up where they are, with many of those rights stripped away.
Nope.
The President nominates, and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints Supreme Court Justices. It's in the Constitution, dude. Read it.
In America, if you are the type of person living paycheck to paycheck, you are penalized for your poverty by what's called bounced check fees. In the dark ages, people would write paper checks to draw on their bank accounts. Since their was no technical means for the validity of that check to be verified, banks would punish people who write bad checks with a fee that would cover the cost of processing such checks. At first it was a service fee, then it was a punitive fee, then it became a very profitable means of gouging poor people.
In the 21st century, with the advent of debit cards, if a poor person visits a store and swipes their card and there isn't enough money, the account is instantly verified for funds and the card user is penalized a bounced check fee even though no transaction took place and the bank is simply punishing the card user for being poor.
Since the poor person can't afford legal representation, the bank can start what becomes a downward spiral for that person. Wealthier people who have proper credit cards almost always can have the charge removed if they make a mistake after a phone call.
It's a vicious tax on the poor which has caused many people to lose hope and simply forgo any hopes of ever breaking even.
On another note, America does not have a correctional system like civilized countries do.
1) America has a penal system, not a correctional system.
2) Americans don't seem to care that it takes the accumulated tax paid by 10 people in America to imprision one person. Since over 2.4 million people are in federal or state prisons at a time in the U.S., 24 million people have to work and pay taxes to keep those 2.4 million people in prison.
3) Once a person is in prison, systems are implemented by opportunists like these phone companies to run up extreme profits on phone calls to and from the prison. This means that since the prisoner is unable to work and pay taxes, it becomes the burden of the tax payers to provide funds to the prisoner via their spouses' welfare checks. This probably adds an entire extra tax payer per prisoner to the equation.
4) Americans can't understand that while prison is no picnic, it hurts the honest tax payers substantially to take revenge on people who commit crimes.
5) America is the only country in the world who believes that punishment is an effective way of handling crimes. While people want to hurt the people who hurt them, the prisoner will spend 2-50 years locked up draining the tax payers. They will establish a life for themselves behind bars and since they will not likely ever get a decent job again, they will keep going back and burdening the system more.
6) Corrections facilities are designed to move prisoners to a higher social class and prepare them for a more productive life. While the victims of the crimes will not feel a sense of satisfaction and will feel cheated, at least the masses won't have to foot the bill of clothing and feeding and watching the perpetrator indefinitely.
There is simply no good solution to managing crime and prisons. But America seems hell bent on biting their noses off to spite their own faces.
There are far too many people in American prisons and it's almost completely because of this sickness Americans having to get revenge.
Posting anonymously since I've been moderating.
Family members looking for a cheaper solution: Set up a in-state forwarding number, as described here: http://wiki.diamondcard.us/pod...
I have no relations to the company other than as a customer, and I haven't tried out their idea. Looks like you still pay the prison phone company, but not that much anymore. If you have any experience with this setup, please share.
They claim that, but their religious practices are so vastly different as to stretch the claim past the breaking point.
That's because they're all doing their religions wrong. The fundamentalists have it right, because they actually read their holy texts and do what they say.
If you're non-violent and follow one of these religions, maybe you should try reading that book that you claim to believe in. Then decide for yourself, "do I really want to promote this? Do I want to be part of a belief system that advocates violence this way?"
There's nothing "deluded" about that fraction of believers subscribing to violence. What's deluded is trying to claim that a religion based on violence, and which explicitly endorses and calls for violence in its holy texts, is somehow peaceful. Pointing this out with the 3 major religions is a great example of the emperor having no clothes.
"Hey, Warden! 'member that one guy seven years ago who called prison officials corrupt on Slashdot? The one among dozens? Well, we've tracked him ever since and he just got thrown in here for misuse of medical cocaine!"
"Finally! (emits a laugh, but it's more of a Renfield-like heheh heheh heheh than a muahahahaha)
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The attempt to revive medieval Islam is a threat to Liberty.
Medieval Islam was a religion of conquerors. A system of belief to justify the violence needed to create an empire. The people using Islam today are doing so with the same objective as those over a thousand years ago... to spread the Islamic way of life by whatever means are necessary.
This medieval Islamic movement is every bit as much of a threat as was Russian Communism or Nazi Fascism.
The people of free societies need to decide if our way of life is worth fighting for.
Pointing this out with the 3 major religions is a great example of the emperor having no clothes.
Christians are usually taught that the Old testament is there to contrast with the new covenant in the new testament. Citing old testament scripture does not implicate Christian beliefs. Christians believe in the new testament teachings of Jesus which preached non-violence and it is those beliefs that establish a new covenant with God.
Certainly the history of Christianity is filled with the same types of violence towards various people that all societies exhibit regardless of belief. But violence towards non-adherents is clearly more prevalent in core Islamic teachings, including the Al-Hadith, than in core Christian beliefs and teachings.
Completely. Look at the rates they're charging. Do any of you know how that works? The prisoner gets one person (it may be more in federal, but this is how it was when I had someone in jail in Brevard Co, FL), and that person needs to prepay the company - $50, please, at least), and they get to call specific numbers, and no one else. And they've only got certain hours... usually, when most folks are at work.
Studies show that the less the contact with the outside world, the higher the recidivism rate. So the "service providers" are assuring their profits....
mark, who'd like all their management behind bars"
Get busted for smoking Marijuana and suddenly you are a master criminal. You have to be punished by not being allowed a cellphone or access to a telephone at a cent per minute rate or even free. Need to talk to your child and it will cost you $0.22 per minute.
That is a real miscarriage of justice, as is "for profit prisons". That telephone is a major profit centre.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
First off, if you're paid *anything* as compensation for doing a job, it's not slavery anymore, by definition.
Your definition of "slavery" is excessively narrow, to the point of non-existence. Even the worst examples tended to offer some pay, even if it was only in the form of room and board. If offering some token compensation was all it took to avoid a charge of slavery there would be no slavery.
If you risk corporal punishment, confinement, or loss of property for failing to carry out a task assigned by someone else, that is slavery—not counting the repayment of debts you voluntarily agreed to, or contractual penalties, as you chose to give up that property of your own free will when you went into debt and/or entered the contract.
The prison case is a bit odd, of course, since the inmates are going to be confined either way, with all their basic subsistence needs met. They aren't compelled to do the work; if they receive anything for their labor it will be strictly in excess of what they would otherwise receive. One could also argue, at least in some cases, that enslavement would be a reasonable and just punishment for their offense, perhaps more so than mere confinement.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
This is why prisons should be penalized for recidivism, and paid not by the prisoner per month but by the prisoner rehabilitated. Let's make the profit motive work for us!
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Well Bernie's promised to put an end to the for-profit prison industry. No one else seems to be campaigning on it.
Actually, Hillary takes a lot of money from the for-profit prison industry in "campaign donations", so we can assume she'll do everything she can to help improve their profitability.
So it's not a matter of the other candidates being neutral on the issue; Hillary is downright pro-private-prisons.
And Republicans are always promoting privatization of government services, so I think it's safe to assume they'd be friends to the private prison corporations too.
Nope, most Christians are virulently anti-homosexual, and the basis for all that is straight from the Old Testament. Also, there's a passage where Jesus specifically said he didn't come to overturn Mosaic Law.
The real question is why prisoners are getting charged for phone calls at all. The incremental cost of calls to anywhere in the US on any reasonable phone plan is now zero, so that should be the price that the prisoners pay. The entire system of charging for calls is a throwback to the days when using the telephone was expensive.
by eliminating prison phones. Convicted criminals in prison have no right to a telephone. Our prisons used to have pay phones that individual inmates could be escorted to use to make just the required phone call to a lawyer, or to a family member, who would then be able to contact a lawyer.
EVERY item of any value that is provided to a prisoner becomes something that can be bartered and thus in-turn becomes a source of potential corruption of the prison system as people smuggle things in/out of prisons for trade and eventually end up bribing prison workers. Rapists, murderers, thieves, arsonists, etc are supposed to be rotting in a cell, not watching TV, playing sports, chatting on phones...
Religious practices define what deity is worshipped? Compare Pentecostal snake handlers to Egyption Copts - both Christian, same god, same basic religious texts, but extremely different religious practices. Islam includes much of the new testament of the Bible as holy scriptures, they refer to the God of Abraham as their own, they accept Jesus as a major prophet who just doesn't happen to be the last prophet. They're really not much further away from Judaism and Christianity as Mormonism is.
Where is the Christian / Jewish counterpart for http://www.oxfordislamicstudie... (Dar al-Harb)?
You (the friend or relative on the outside) call the ripoff phone service and deposit money that goes only from you to these people with the phone service monopoly. What the inmate gets is the ability to place calls.
If you risk corporal punishment, confinement, or loss of property for failing to carry out a task assigned by someone else
Your defintion of "slavery" is likewise excessively broad. The policeman ordering me move so that he can keep me in his line of sight can certainly confine me for failing to comply. Am I the slave of the policeman?
The policeman ordering me move so that he can keep me in his line of sight can certainly confine me for failing to comply. Am I the slave of the policeman?
Yes. If you haven't done anything else that would justify confinement and you're being punished simply for failing to comply with his command, that would be an example of slavery—albeit a minor one.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat