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.

Comments

Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're allowed access to their finances? Does this create a rift in equality? Why don't they just get an allotment of minutes?

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the for-profit prison industry wouldn't make as much money that way.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Luthair]

They probably work for 10-cents an hour making license plates...

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[fustakrakich]

Money? Just like on the outside, prostitution and drug sales.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the for-profit prison industry wouldn't make as much money that way.

When prisons are designed to be for profit, then humans are the fuel for capitalism.

And an Orwellian society is the end result to ensure there is enough fuel to feed that fucking flavor of capitalism that should have never existed in the first place.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest are still "for profit" because inmate labor saves the states millions upon millions of dollars in wages every year. Litter cleanup, pothole crews, hospital laundry, furniture construction, all of this is done by prisoners. In some cases it's contracted out to private industry and the state makes good money, there are prison laundries that process hotel linens for example. The inmates are paid pennies per hour, if that, and the state reaps the benefits.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Aighearach]

Instead of a minimum wage, they have a maximum wage (around $4/hr average). But the average wage is 93 cents/hr and the lowest is 16 cents.

So a cheap phone call at a discount rate of only $10/minute, they can talk to family for a few minutes a week. And that is only if they're not being extorted by other inmates for the money.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Replying anonymously because I'm modding in this thread.

For my friend behind bars, she relies on friends to add money to her account through JPay, a convenient service that takes another 5-10% or more off the top whenever you deposit into the inmate's account.

Until my friend was imprisoned, I had NO IDEA how pervasive rent-seeking and profiteering was in the prison system. It really is a nightmare.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[KGIII]

> Replying anonymously because I'm modding in this thread.

There's a reason why one doesn't post in threads they moderate. They list this reason - as I recall. (I stopped moderating a long time ago. I'd rather speak than decide what others should or should not read.) At any rate, they designed the system that way for a reason - I'd like to think it's a valid reason. Disrupting the game, by changing the rules, just seems low. I lack a better word. Low, lowly, pathetic? They all work.

If you don't like the rules, don't play the game. Don't take it personal, you're not the only "sneaky" person.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[SumDog]

They get some money from their families. There are limits on what they can give inmates. They can also earn money from working in programs. American Flags are made in women's low security correctional facilities where they are paid $2 an hour.

Prison is the only form of slavery explicitly allowed by the US constitution. But it's not the only form of slavery. The other is a form of voluntary indentured servitude. It's called the military.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[L. J. Beauregard]

Oh. I guess that makes it all right, then.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Phil Urich]

I mean, the system is expressly designed so that one is allowed to post anonymously and not lose mod status on a post, so I'm not sure it's so underhanded. Personally, I do think that's enough of a barrier so as to prevent the negative outcomes of being able to moderate and be moderated in the same thread (aka the Reddit Effect). Anyways, their droplet of insight was appreciated, so I'm okay with it. All that being said, I do applaud your vigilance.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[colinwb]

From what I remember of the moderating system, if someone is logged in and has moderated in a thread and then tries to make a post in the same thread they are given two options:
(1) make the post with their user name visible and all their moderation in the thread is cancelled
(2) make the post anonymously leaving their moderation in the thread unchanged
I assume it would be simple to (3) prevent a logged in user posting in a thread even anonymously, so if my memory about (2) is correct I conclude it is intentional to allow a moderator to post anonymously in a thread that they've moderated, perhaps because (4) from a practical viewpoint they can unlogin and post anonymously anyway.
So I don't think it's particularly "sneaky" to moderate and post (anonymously) in the same thread, and it's arguably not sneaky at all if you're upfront about it, as the parent was. If you don't like it you can just ignore the upfront and anonymous comment, or you can treat it more or less as you would any other anonymous comment, that is on its intrinsic merits (or dismerits).
Or you can argue for and convince the site administrators to implement (3) - if they have not already done so - and rely on the inconvenience of (4) to reduce its impact.
(Aside, for what it's worth, I usually find your posts interesting, even if I were to disagree with one on the basis of personal expertise.)
So, having said that, I'm now going to try to post this, and on this occasion (but not necessarily on all occasions) I'm going to choose option (1) if I'm given it.
So: the first thing that happened is I get this message: "If you continue to post this comment, all moderations done to this discussion will be undone! Are you sure you want to post?"
Which raises doubts in my mind as to whether I'm going to be given option (2) even if I don't want to use it.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[colinwb]

Well, for the sake of completeness I was - I think - given option (2) of posting anonymously, so it's arguable that moderating and then posting anonymously while being logged in isn't breaking the rules, or at least the rules as implemented.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[KGIII]

That's like saying it's not sneaking to steal a cookie from the cookie jar 'cause they left it open and unguarded. Sheesh.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[KGIII]

Just like I said to the other one, that's like justifying taking a cookie from the cookie jar because someone was naive enough to leave it unguarded or not cynical enough to distrust the "honor system." Sheesh...

It's like cheating at "Old Maid." Against a kid. While you're the adult.

Well, maybe not that bad but still... You get the idea. Or not. Maybe not.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course I forgot you can't mod in a discussion you've already posted in, so never mind.

Point is... the people who designed moderation aren't stupid, and the system hasn't changed in a long time but still works great. I'm inclined to believe that any emergent property - such as this - is at least partly the reason for the system's success rather that something that can just be corrected. Nobody seems to be 100% why Slashdot's moderation system is so much better than anyone else's, and the few attempts I know of to pick and choose parts of it haven't worked well. I can only assume it's the whole thing.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[guises]

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.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[rickb928]

The fix to this may be to stop paying attention to ACs. After all, they are cowards.

Save for those who moderate and then post anonymously. They are cheats. You can figure out why that was frowned upon, and why it's impossible to stop.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Inmates have small accounts with the facility which they can feed from their 12-42 cent/hour jobs, or, if they're fortunate, with gifts from friends on the outside.
They can spend the money on phone calls or items from the prison commissary, for example toothpaste, stamps, and vitamins.
The last time I looked, the Federal system was charging inmates 6 cents per minute to make _collect_ calls. In other words, to talk to your children for five minutes, you'd have to work two and a half hours at one of the entry-level jobs, or most of an hour at a skilled trade.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Dog-Cow]

If you slammed a steel bar through your skull, you wouldn't care so much about the posting habits of others. And, if I should happen to be wrong about that, it's OK, because you'd be dead. It's a win for society either way!

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Two dollars an hour is the rarefied elite of pay ranges. The Unicor factory jobs which pay that much have waiting lists of more than a year to get into one.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[uncqual]

At least in the state I live, no prisoner is required to work. They choose to. Apparently even prisoners would rather work to keep themselves busy and to earn some luxuries. Seems like a win-win. Besides, it's career training for one of the many jobs for making license plates after they get out. Oh, wait...

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

They then split that 5-10% with the prison administration.
See http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06...

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[penguinoid]

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.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[ultranova]

And dangling basics in front of prisoners and calling it "incentive to work" is just slavery by a different name.

"Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!"

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[jargonburn]

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.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Gavagai80]

There's no reason to think that the powers that be want people to not post anonymously in threads they've moderated. The idea is simply to not give people their automatic +2 score visibility in threads they've moderated. If you want to post as an AC with a 0 score, then that's good, and you'll be modded up if your post is worth seeing.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Maxo-Texas]

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

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[johanw]

"We have the highest rate of incarceration in the free world"

Free world? The US is one of the more unfree countries in this world. This is one of the issues that makes the US unfree. Except when you have lost of money of course, but that holds for most countries.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[StikyPad]

As someone with a family member who's been locked up in a place with one of these systems, I can tell you: It's a racket.

A third party has to set up an account for the inmate, with a minimum deposit, usually $60+. They then have to provide one or more phone numbers that the inmate is authorized to call "collect," or what they call "prepaid collect." The rates seem to start at about $0.75/min. So for $30, which is about the price of an unlimited cellular calling plan, they get about 40 minutes of talk time. And I'll spare you the logistical nightmares of getting this all set up, but suffice it to say that it's probably easier to sneak in a cell phone.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[StikyPad]

Hi, you must be new here.

As per the Moderation page, the goals of moderation are:

1. Promote Quality, Discourage Crap
2. Make Slashdot as readable as possible for as many people as possible.
3. Do not require a huge amount of time from any single moderator.
4. Do not allow a single moderator a 'reign of terror'

GP's anonymous post was clearly within those goals while, ironically, ours are driving the discussion off-topic.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Grishnakh]

It doesn't work. Many people browse at +1 so they never see AC posts at all; you might as well not post AC because it just won't be seen.

I have a simple solution for this vexing problem: I simply never moderate. The system is bullshit. SoylentNews fixed the problem, easily, ages and ages ago, using Slashdot's own code. You can't moderate in a *thread* you posted in, but you can still moderate and participate in an overall discussion simultaneously. Since every article's discussion can easily have dozens of threads, this more fine-grained approach is far more fair and seems to have completely eliminated all the complaints about this.

As long as the system on this site remains unchanged, any complaints at all about "poor moderation" are invalid, AFAIC. You're reaping what you've sown.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Grishnakh]

There's a big difference with military service (besides the fact that it's voluntary): it actually pays extremely well, at least for lower grades. You're not going to find a job in private industry that pays remotely as well as enlisting in the military, when you have only a high school diploma and no job skills. Heck, they even pay you extra for getting married!

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[beastofburdon]

They do indeed have a "choice" between slavery and solitary confinement, but I don't consider that a real choice.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[beastofburdon]

We have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. No need for extra qualifiers, nobody else has ever matched our prisoners per capita in known history.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[beastofburdon]

It stretches into every aspect of the "justice" system. Just wait until your friend is on probation, they will have to pay for their probation officer, drug tests, and possibly an ankle monitor as well. Then if you fail a drug test you have to go to live-in rehab, which you have to pay for as well. Every aspect of the system is just another way to force you to pay more money to the system.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Shirley Marquez]

They may not be required to work. But they are in a situation that is coercive by its very nature and they are offered incentives that make it appealing to work. Aside the fact that they get money for incidentals, they also get to escape a very boring prison life situation and at least do SOMETHING. And refusing work doesn't look good when you come in front of the parole board.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Anonymous Coward]

This should not be "Informative" - I am posting anon because I would for one of the mentioned companies. No facility has $10/min rates. Those do. not. exist.

Now, some facilities are in states that allow commissions to be paid to the facilities - these calls are remarkably more expensive than calls from other facilities, but are typically in the $2-5 per /call/ (15-20 minutes typically) range (compared to 10 cents/min or much, much less at some DOCs).

For perspective, my law-abiding daughter pays more per minute on her prepaid cell than inmates in some states pay.

Calls where the inmate reverses the charges can be (sometimes much, much) more expensive, but this is also true if I call my family from a payphone at the airport collect.

Be careful what you mod up simply because you like the sound of the rhetoric.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Maxo-Texas]

It's the internet... if there were some country... Outer Moldavia... that had a higher iincarceration rate, I was sure I'd here it.

The way I phrased it, any correction would be more in the direction i wanted to go.

on the internet, to find something out, never ask a question. The response will be crickets.

Make a statement and people will rush to give you correct information.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Maxo-Texas]

Absolutely correct. Nothing wrong with moderating and then posting anonymously (or vice versa).

Nothing sneaky about it either.

And besides, from my personal experience it's an extreme edge case affecting less than 0.1% of my posts.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[KGIII]

Pfft... That'd not kill me. I'm a superhero. I've even got my underpants on outside my pants to prove it.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[uncqual]

Courts have ruled that medical care and nutrition in prison at the state's expense is required -- hence it is a "right" a prisoner has. Not so with social phone calls in most (any?) jurisdictions.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[pnutjam]

How does that contrast with all the welfare people who will just do nothing if we give them a bare subsistence existence?

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[uncqual]

Court's have not declared that welfare is something that government must provide (i.e., that it is some sort of "right") to non-incarcerated individuals. We could wipe out all welfare, medicaid, the PPACA, SNAP, government rental assistance, Social Security, and Medicare etc. virtually overnight if the majority wanted to do so and there wouldn't be anything the courts could do about it if the legislation was carefully crafted (so there were no loopholes or ambiguities in the wording for freeloaders to exploit).

Prisoners, being under the involuntary care of the state, do have additional "rights" to minimal living standards. Generally courts use the prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishment" to declare, for example, that a prisoner on death row has a right to a government funded liver transplant since he, obviously, can't pursue that medical care on his own on account of him being incarcerated.

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[pnutjam]

Yeah, I know. I drew a good one out above though...

Re: Where do inmates get money for calls?

[pnutjam]

Let's not pretend we can do things the majority want. The majority would probably like to expand those programs, but we stuck by the crazy system that equates land with people when it comes to representation.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[beastofburdon]

on the internet, to find something out, never ask a question. The response will be crickets. Make a statement and people will rush to give you correct information.

So true.
That does not, however mean that the information given is correct, but in this case I've looked into the numbers pretty thoroughly and am rather confident in my assertion.

Re:Where do inmates get money for calls?

[Maxo-Texas]

Yes... but your correction was more in the direction i wanted to go but was to tired to validate that as a true statement at the time.

You have served me well, young padwan.

I hear people need a service to relay calls..

[Anonymous Coward]

Call this out of state number and it'll bounce back to your wife five miles from your current location!

State's rights is again...

[Anonymous Coward]

used to enforce racism.

Re:State's rights is again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Magic convenient solution that Liberals think is impossible: STOP COMMITTING CRIMES

Re:State's rights is again...

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:State's rights is again...

[Plus1Entropy]

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?

Re:State's rights is again...

[KGIII]

> Black children have, on average, more than twice the lead levels as whites.

Then stop shooting them! ;-)

Re:State's rights is again...

[geoskd]

Magic convenient solution that Liberals think is impossible: STOP COMMITTING CRIMES

Magic convenient solution that Conservatives think is impossible: STOP DEFINING RELIGIOUS TRANSGRESSIONS AS CRIMES

Not everyone subscribes to your particular religion, and even if they did, making a crime out of drug use is actually making things worse by anyones definition.

Re:State's rights is again...

[rickb928]

Has the Obama administration in any way reduced prosecution for drug trafficking or possession? He issues Executive Orders to refuse to enforce immigration laws, yet leaves federal drug enforcement intact.

Is he somehow kowtowing to conservative policies?

Re:State's rights is again...

[Gavagai80]

According to prosecutors, yes apparently Obama is lax on drugs. He's also interfered a lot less in state-level legalizations of certain drugs than previous administrations.

Re: State's rights is again...

[Anonymous Coward]

There are states where I can buy recreational drugs and yet there are no DEA agents arresting people for buying from these stores. That seems like the very definition of lax enforcement. If a parent knew their child was doing something illegal, but did nothing to stop it, wouldn't you call that lax parenting?

Re: State's rights is again...

[rickb928]

And it's your contention that Obama either instituted this policy or expanded it?

Re:State's rights is again...

[currently_awake]

Maybe we need fewer laws to break. We can start by revoking all the victim less crimes, where they arrest you for hurting yourself.

Re:State's rights is again...

[currently_awake]

American drug laws are not religion based, they are based on persecuting minorities by criminalizing their drug of choice. Alcohol and Heroin are comparable hard core drugs, but the drug commonly used by white skinned European ancestry Americans is legal.

Re:State's rights is again...

[fredrated]

That's all, just stop committing crimes?
Who knew. Next you will tell us to lose weight all we need to do is just STOP EATING.
And to prevent abortions we just need to STOP HAVING SEX.
God this is all so easy, why didn't anyone else think of this?

Companies hate regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

They really hate it when they get regulation on a 'captive' market.

Re:Companies hate regulation

[beelsebob]

No, it's not the free market. The people making the purchase didn't actually get to any involvement in choosing which service they got, and nor did they get perfect information about the choices available.

Re:Companies hate regulation

[rahvin112]

And the people making the choice of provider are doing so with interests that are entirely contradictory to their own. Prison phone rates are one of the ways we fuck people over we've already incarcerated. And the best thing is recidivism rates go up the less contact people have with their families while in prison. So these polices increase recidivism.

As an aside they are also a state contract that is VERY easy to turn into corrupt slush money with the selected contract phone company paying the selectors bribes. The entire prison phone system is corrupt and it should be regulated heavily with flat rate price limits based on independent studies of costs.

Re:Companies hate regulation

[CanadianMacFan]

Yes, but then who said that prison was actually about rehabilitation?

Re:Companies hate regulation

[Trailer Trash]

This is dictionary-definition cronyism, the exact opposite of a free market. If the market was free then the prisoners could get long-distance service from anybody willing to offer it and the rates for in-country calling would be pennies/minute or less.

Wild guess - you're voting for Bernie. I've found people who don't understand basic economics tend to swing that direction.

Re:The religion of peace

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

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.

This is evil, and incompetence at so many levels

[jopsen]

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?

Re:The religion of peace

[Aighearach]

That's a pretty strange slander-lation you got there. I went with a translation instead and found:

And let not those who disbelieve suppose that they can outstrip (Allah’s Purpose). Lo! they cannot escape. Make ready for them all thou canst of (armed) force and of horses tethered, that thereby ye may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy.
And if they incline to peace, then incline to it [also] and rely upon Allah. Indeed, it is He who is the Hearing, the Knowing.

The context was that they were under attack and being threatened with death.

working around the 14th amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:working around the 14th amendment

[merky1]

Huh, wah??? The country was in no way founded on slavery. It may have been a major consumer of slavery, but claiming a foundational need for slavery is a little odd, and pushing an agenda based on the talking points of a few self indulgent fat cats. If anything, you could move the needle closer to reality and consider the country founded on oppression, while not a "foundational" principle, it is how we have become who we are. From the indians, to slaves, to immigrants, the population is quick to take advantage of the weak, poor, and defenseless.

If you want a better description, our country was founded by religious extremists exiled from their host countries. Kinda like ISIL, but with someplace unoccupied to go.

Re: working around the 14th amendment

[Phil Urich]

I mean, you even mention earlier in your comment that it wasn't exactly unoccupied . . .

Re:working around the 14th amendment

[DNS-and-BIND]

The stupid in this comment hurts so much. I cannot believe that educated people hold these opinions, but here we are. I think a lot of what Leftists hate, they are just inventing themselves. It's a contest who can make the most ridiculous strawmen.

Re:working around the 14th amendment

[serviscope_minor]

I think a lot of what Leftists hate, they are just inventing themselves.

Hyperbole, perhaps. However, the US has the higest prison polulation in the entire world by absolute numbers and the highest per capita at 700 per 100,000, i.e. 0.7%. If you compare to European countries you'll see rates clustered around 0.1%.

Something is deeply rotten in a country calling itself "land of the free" that incarcerates very substantially more of its population than China.

Make no mistake: the USAlike all other countries isn't perfect and this is one of it's most glaring flaws.

Re:The religion of peace

[Darinbob]

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.

Re:This is evil, and incompetence at so many level

[chadenright]

Yes, the prison administrators really are corrupt. These are the same administrators that already contract out convicts as slave labor.

Re:This is evil, and incompetence at so many level

[Greyfox]

What? The whole POINT of the for-profit prison system is to maximize profits. Charging ridiculous rates for phone calls is clearly a win-win for them. If the prisoner happens to commit another crime and wind up back in prison, well, CHA-CHING!

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.

Why is long distance still a thing?

[Chewbacon]

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?

Re:Why is long distance still a thing?

[BradleyUffner]

Because they are literally holding their customers prisoner and give them no choice in using the service.

Re:Why is long distance still a thing?

[KGIII]

Why not these companies? Err... The distinct lack of competition, perhaps? It's not like they can just meander down to the store and sign up for a better plan or buy a pay-as-you-go phone.

Re:Why is long distance still a thing?

[SumDog]

Correct, very correct, usage of the word literally.

Re:Why is long distance still a thing?

[Aighearach]

No, somebody else is literally holding them prisoner. They're a captive market, but they're not the captives of the market.

Having a monopoly over a market of captives, doesn't make you their captor.

Furthermore, it is the prison administrators who restrict their choice to the one company, not the company. The company just won the bid, they don't have the authority to decide if there will be a bid that goes to only one company.

In fact, while the main thrust of the statement is correct, each part of the statement is literally incorrect.

Re:Why is long distance still a thing?

[rahvin112]

It's called a captive audience with no alternatives. Ideal scenario for a monopoly phone provider (who's paying the warden and prison commission) and exorbitant rates that the captive audience has no way to resist..

Re:Why is long distance still a thing?

[Aighearach]

Don't forget to include an idea with your insults. You said the word "hypocrite," but since you didn't point to any hypocrisy, I can only assume you don't know what the word means.

Oh, maybe you thought that knowing factual details means you're advocating for some similar political position? Yeah. No.

Re:This is evil, and incompetence at so many level

[Plus1Entropy]

You're that ninja...

Re:This is evil, and incompetence at so many level

[KGIII]

> 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.)

Re:reality time

[KGIII]

> Can anyone think of a reason calls shouldn't be FREE?

Yes.

Any more stupid questions?

Or did you mean can anyone think of a 'good reason' why calls shouldn't be free? That's a whole other subject, of course. There are also lots of reasons why they might not want to make them completely free - starting with the lack of availability, security, and things of that nature. If they're free then everyone will want to be on the phone all the time.

Somewhere between free and fucking retarded (which is the current situation) is probably a reasonable number.

Re:reality time

[silas_moeckel]

Those same companies use the excuse that they record all those calls and allow prison guards to listen in in real time or recorded. They probably also have some system to block calls and/or very specific lists of what numbers a given prisoner can call.

Re:The religion of peace

[PopeRatzo]

That's a pretty strange slander-lation you got there. I went with a translation instead and found:

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.

Re:This is evil, and incompetence at so many level

[SumDog]

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.

recidivism rates

[OrangeTide]

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%)

Re:recidivism rates

[Aighearach]

Rehabilitation is explicitly not part of the job of US prisons.

A lot, maybe even the majority, of citizens have become confused about that; I blame television police and law dramas.

In the old days, the citizens understood that the purpose was to punish people. There was never any change of law where it switched to rehabilitation. That never happened. And yet, people's perception of what exists shifted somehow. But the institutional goals did not.

Re:recidivism rates

[Firethorn]

In the old days, the citizens understood that the purpose was to punish people. There was never any change of law where it switched to rehabilitation. That never happened. And yet, people's perception of what exists shifted somehow. But the institutional goals did not.

Actually, rehabilitation was always a design goal. The founding fathers even developed a number of prisons that, religious focus aside, would have been considered progressive even today. We're talking about things like each prisoner being assigned a 'counselor' to work with the prisoner, and each counselor having no more than 3 prisoners assigned to him. There were education opportunities - both basic and occupational.

Much of this was lost in the 70-80s time period as crime rates skyrocketed and subsequently prison populations exploded as not only did we start sending more people to prison, we sent them for longer periods of time. It didn't help that, with the loss of what reform programs we had, that recidivism rates shot up and we got this brain bug that these people couldn't be 'saved', IE reformed.

Re:recidivism rates

[OrangeTide]

It's not cost effective to operate a system that only punishes people and lacks any way to break the cycle.
Wasting money because that's how things were always done is not a good reason to keep doing the same thing.

Re:recidivism rates

[Aighearach]

The idea was that punishing people would cause them to "learn not to do it" because of being punished, but that doesn't mean that it was a design goal to "rehabilitate" the prisoner.

As far as the founding fathers go, they didn't actually do anything other than ban "cruel and usual punishment." But lets be clear; that in preference of standard punishment, not some other thing than pure punishment.

Re:recidivism rates

[Aighearach]

Right, right, but unless somebody goes and changes all the laws and regulations about how to run prisons, then it is neither cost effective or realistic to want or expect them to be run differently.

Wasting money because the law says so it entirely sustainable, regardless of efficiency, because they are given money to operate. They aren't asked to break even. How can people even tell the difference?

Re:recidivism rates

[Firethorn]

Okay, first. The founding fathers were important politicians of their day. They did far more than write and sign the constitution.

Second, even in their day, they knew that vocational training helped. Please note that if you read the links that 'reform' in this case is often more pushed by the desire to do better than the knowledge of how to actually do so.
Auburn system - "Whigs favored this system because it promised to rehabilitate criminals by teaching them personal discipline and respect for work, property, and other people.", developed during the 1820s.
Benjamin Rush was an advocate for prison reform.

Re:recidivism rates

[OrangeTide]

Right, right, but unless somebody goes and changes all the laws and regulations about how to run prisons, then it is neither cost effective or realistic to want or expect them to be run differently.

There is no evidence to support your position.

Re:recidivism rates

[Aighearach]

"The Auburn system (also known as the New York System) is a penal method of the 19th century in which persons worked during the day in groups and were kept in solitary confinement at night, with enforced silence at all times."

"Rush deemed public punishments such as putting a person on display in stocks, common at the time, to be counterproductive. He proposed instead private confinement, labor, solitude, and religious instruction for criminals. In addition he opposed the death penalty."

Right. None of that contradicts anything I said.

Re:recidivism rates

[Overzeetop]

Rehabilitation is explicitly not part of the job of US prisons.

Hmm...maybe it should be?

Re:recidivism rates

[Aighearach]

Yeah, my own personal opinion is that some sort of "re-education camp" is a good idea if it is being used for real criminals.

The places that send political prisons to that sort of place has given the whole idea a bad name.

But it seems like 10 years of brainwashing them to be a better person would be more useful than just 10 years of punishment, victimization at the hands of their peers, and the resulting hardening of their attitudes and personalities.

I'd want to reduce the guard tower setup, reduce the unstructured personal contact, increase the monitoring, and put a real focus on having psychologically trained staff monitoring the details of their interactions and life and trying to figure out what brainwashing they need.

And I'd also want to take the drug addicts out of the prison in many cases, and use a civil process to put them in an inpatient hospital instead. And maybe just give them free drugs, but they can't even apply to exit the facility unless they've got some amount of time clean. If they're violent, they get sent back to the prison and no more free drugs. That would keep security costs fairly low, if done right.

Re:reality time

[Aighearach]

Can anyone think of a reason calls shouldn't be FREE?

Think about their poor relatives who would be under pressure to spend all their time talking to them. Some family contact is good, but a needy excess would push people away and lead longterm to abandonment.

It might not be the best metering system, but it isn't hard to come up with a mediocre reason why it might be good; and that's a much higher bar than you asked for!

And... you think they give prisoners bleach for cleaning the floors?! LOL yeah they probably get razors to shave with, too, and a healthy balanced diet. Sorry, gotta go, it is almost time for me to wake up from my nap...

Re:This is evil, and incompetence at so many level

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

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.

Re:The religion of peace

[ClickOnThis]

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.

The elephant in the room

[DNS-and-BIND]

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.

Re:The elephant in the room

[wbr1]

These women have the choice and freedom to decline the calls. I was in virginia prison for a decade. There are people who prey on a caring wife/mother etc wasting money with constant calls. These are a small portion and your view is biased by your job in only seeing those that went to collection. I knew far more people that called rarely due to high rates, or sent some of their extremely low inmate pay to family to!cover costs of calls. In Virginia formexample inmate pay was 0.23 to 0.45 per hour inluess youhad an industry job. Those could go up to 2 per hour and were very limited, IE hard to get.
As for myself, I almost never called as my main contact, my mother, moved to England, and international calls were not allowedexcept from a staff phone, prepaid with supervision. I didn't care!about the supervision, but none of the staff knew or were willing to help with this
Make no mistake, prisons phones arema profiteering racket, so is prison medical, commissary, industry.. Corruption is incredibly rampant, so is regulatory capture and more...

Re:The elephant in the room

[ultranova]

Long ago I used to work for a company that collected past-due phone bills.

So the details you remember from long ago support your political beliefs. How strange.

Once in a while we would get a batch of jail calls, all made collect from the jailhouse phones.

You do realize you could simply disallow or limit collect calls from jail?

The elephant in the room is GOP. It's the right wing that's causing this problem, and most others.

Re:The elephant in the room

[bkr1_2k]

Yes, they do. You always have the option of declining a collect call. I never once received a call from my brother when he was in prison that wasn't collect. I asked him why and he wasn't able to make any other kind of call. No problem. I never realized he was also getting charged for the phone call on top of what I was paying. It makes a lot more sense now why the calls were so rare.

It seems as though you're implying someone would somehow "enforce" her acceptance of the calls. If so, that, like the previous poster said, is a very small portion of the calls being made. As previous poster said, yes it probably happens but it's far from the normal situation no matter what your experience with it is.

Re:The religion of peace

[vux984]

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.

Re:reality time

[Gavagai80]

Free doesn't mean infinite. Calls should be free, but limited in duration according to monitoring needs and availability.

Re:This is evil, and incompetence at so many level

[argStyopa]

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?

Re:reality time

[fafalone]

Um, that sounded like sarcasm to me. Apart from those on suicide watch/psychiatric lockdown (and possibly supermax type facilities for the very violent, but I'm not familiar with them), prisoners do get bleach when they're on cleaning details, and do get razors to shave with*. Healthy balanced diet not so much, which is why those other two seemed like sarcasm. Inmates on work details sometimes even have access to [gasp] box cutters and knives.. it's almost like they're people instead of animals!

* - and the one suicide attempt I saw, the dude didn't even use the razor, he took apart a handheld radio from the commissary and sharpened some of the electronics on the inside. It would have worked too if the CO didn't notice so quick, dude lost A LOT of blood (which, by the way, inmates then cleaned up with bleach and one of those deadly soap balls).

family gets burner phone from next state over

[yodleboy]

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.

re: prisons / slavery

[King_TJ]

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.

Re:The religion of peace

[currently_awake]

They claim that, but their religious practices are so vastly different as to stretch the claim past the breaking point.

Re:The religion of peace

[Grishnakh]

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.

Re:This is evil, and incompetence at so many level

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"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)

Re:The religion of peace

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Prison phone providers are scum

[whitroth]

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"

Court Stops FCC's Latest Attempt To Lower Prison P

[lsatenstein]

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.

Re: prisons / slavery

[JesseMcDonald]

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.

Re:This is evil, and incompetence at so many level

[Ichijo]

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!

Re:This is evil, and incompetence at so many level

[Grishnakh]

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.

Re:reality time

[Aighearach]

Um, that sounded like sarcasm to me.

It certainly doesn't apply to all prisons, but if it is true sometimes then it is true. I didn't say it is always true, or imply that. They don't all get those things, that is for sure. Many are issued a razor entering the shower and give it back when leaving. Others only get an electric clipper cut from the barber.

Inmates in NY sometimes get access to power grinders, which is a known fact, but they're really not supposed to have them.

Why any charge at all?

[Shirley Marquez]

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.

Re:The religion of peace

[Darinbob]

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.

Re:The religion of peace

[ZeroConcept]

Where is the Christian / Jewish counterpart for http://www.oxfordislamicstudie... (Dar al-Harb)?

Re: prisons / slavery

[JesseMcDonald]

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.