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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.
Because the for-profit prison industry wouldn't make as much money that way.
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.
They're allowed access to their finances?
They are often able to call collect. When my brother was in prison (for assaulting a police officer) he called me collect several times. Inmates are usually able to work in prison industries for pay. Some prisons do manufacturing. My brother learned how to operate a metal lathe and vertical mill while doing time. Some prisons even run call centers.
Does this create a rift in equality?
Prison is already very unequal.
Why don't they just get an allotment of minutes?
Then the prison has no incentive to keep the phone system operational, and the inmates will have less incentive to work.
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?
Magic convenient solution that Liberals think is impossible: STOP COMMITTING CRIMES
The best predictor of whether a child will grow up to be a criminal is blood lead levels. Black children have, on average, more than twice the lead levels as whites. Maybe we should be spending more on clean water and less on building prisons.
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!
How about: stop making stupid things like drugs illegal? You want to talk conservative policies? Why does BIG GOVERNMENT get to come into my house and tell me what I can and cannot put in my own body?
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
> Black children have, on average, more than twice the lead levels as whites.
Then stop shooting them! ;-)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
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.
Then the prison has no incentive to keep the phone system operational, and the inmates will have less incentive to work.
Okay, this is just bullshit. They don't need extra "incentive" to keep the prison operational, that's their job. And dangling basics in front of prisoners and calling it "incentive to work" is just slavery by a different name. It's fine for prisoners to learn a trade, it helps a great deal with recidivism, but it's not something that you can force on a person.
Not to mention that most of those prison industries aren't about teaching a trade at all, they're mostly just about the slave labor.
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.
But odds are, encouraging socialization (such as by giving them free phone service), especially with non-prisoners, and their family and friends, would decrease recidivism. In which case free phone service for prisoners would pay for itself a thousand-fold.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
decrease recidivism. In which case free phone service for prisoners would pay for itself
And where is the incentive for the prison industry to decrease recidivism? I don't refer to the people "in charge". Politically, there are points to be scored by underlining successful reformations; however, there are so many more points to be scored through PROFITS.
Absolutely, in this day and age of free phone calls via skype over the internet, it would be trivial to allow skype calls for nearly free to home.
$120 a month for a couple internet lines and a couple cheap tablets hard wired to only skype and watched over by guards.
Our prison industry is sick. We have the highest rate of incarceration in the free world (and actually higher than most of the unfree world too).
It's sickening.
The prison industry pays (lots of) money to
a) criminalize activites that were not illegal before.
b) extend prison sentences
c) keep things illegal which should be legal
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.