FCC Can't Cap the Cost of Cross-State Prison Phone Calls, Court Rules (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Federal Communications Commission does not have the authority to cap the cost of prison and jail phone calls within states, an appeals court ruled in a decision today, dealing a massive blow to inmates and their advocates who have spent years litigating caps on the cost of such calls. Over several years, the FCC, under Democratic leadership, moved to cap the cost of calls for inmates. Activists argued that prisoners were effectively being extorted by private companies charging exorbitant rates -- a move that benefited private prisons and the states that got cuts of the revenue. Some of those states joined with companies in appealing the FCC's rules. The agency first moved to cap rates across state lines, and then, later, within states. Today, the court ruled that the FCC had overstepped when it attempted to regulate the price of calls within states. In the majority opinion, the court left little wiggle room for advocates of price-capping, with the possible exception of the cross-state caps, which are a minority of calls made by inmates. The opinion vacated not only the agency's proposed caps for in-state calls, but said the agency also lacked justification to require reports on video calling services. It also vacated a provision that would ban site commission payments.

Comments

Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[Solandri]

In the majority opinion, the court left little wiggle room for advocates of price-capping, with the possible exception of the cross-state caps, which are a minority of calls made by inmates.

So any lawyer working with inmates in a certain state just needs to get a virtual phone number in another state, and have it forward to his regular phone number.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[BankRobberMBA]

It's not the lawyers, it's the families. Many of them struggle with technical issues, and almost all of them struggle with cost issues. Many inmates rely on their families to send them the money to make calls to maintain family ties. This makes that much harder.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[ShanghaiBill]

This isn't about calling lawyers. This is about inmates keeping in touch with their families. Many states, including California, ship inmates to out of state prisons, where it hard for their families to visit. Putting even more barriers between these inmates and their families is idiotic, since there is plenty of evidence that family bonds reduce recidivism.

Flippant statements like "just get a virtual phone number" are not constructive. If these people had the wherewithal to do that, they wouldn't be in prison in the first place. These are dysfunctional people on the bottom rung of society. We shouldn't be trying to kick them even lower.

The people running the prisons know damn well what they are doing. They profit from squeezing money from desperate families, and they profit even more from the high recidivism rates that keep their facilities occupied.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[BankRobberMBA]

It's not hard for you. it's not hard for me, either. So, let's agree that we're not talking about you or me (although I was in Federal Prison for 9 years).

Many of these people have never used a computer before. Some have only used public access computers (like those in a library), often only for things like YouTube and maybe email. Many of these people are elderly. Some of these people have learning disabilities.

I was locked up with Walter Forbes and John and Tim Rigas. We're not talking about those guys' families. We're talking about the families of guys who dropped out of high school, don't have GEDs, and wound up in prison because they were trying to make money illegally and got caught.

Many of them struggle with technical issues.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[Ichijo]

This is why prisons should be penalized for each ex-inmate who recividates. Let's put the profit motive to work for the benefit of everyone and not just the prisons themselves.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[gtall]

Prisons were never set up for rehabilitating prisoners. You are barking up the wrong tree. What needs to happen are changes in sentencing laws and more dough ploughed into programs outside prison. Well, that was starting until Sessions decided to stick in his tiny wee-wee at the federal level.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[Shadowmist]

Many of them struggle with technical issues

How hard is it to set up a Google Voice again?

Very hard since one of the things you can't count on having in prison is your own private internet connection.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[rmdingler]

It's not the lawyers, it's the families. Many of them struggle with technical issues, and almost all of them struggle with cost issues. Many inmates rely on their families to send them the money to make calls to maintain family ties. This makes that much harder.

At a minimum, the people in jail for pretrial detention deserve access to their families and support system at a better rate than $3.75 for a 15 minute local call.

Post-conviction, you maybe have an argument for gouging. Maay-be.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[Nutria]

At a minimum, the people in jail for pretrial detention deserve access to their families and support system at a better rate than $3.75 for a 15 minute local call.

You're absolutely right. But it's not within the FCC's purview to regulate intra-state commerce.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[BankRobberMBA]

In the Feds at least, inmates cannot call 1-800 numbers. They can only call numbers on a pre-approved list, each assigned to a particular person. Numbers that can go to multiple people introduces the risk of what they call third-party communication. That's a non-starter.

Also, they cannot use calling cards of any type. All phone traffic for inmates is carried by the approved vendor and is charged at their rates.

Finally, the dial pad no longer works on (at least some) inmate phones once the call is connected. Attempting to dial additional digits can result in your call being disconnected, although I think this is not standard at all prisons.

State prisons and county jails each have their own arrangements, but many are similar to the Feds'.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[Nutria]

I am also fond of the notion that the Federales have the power to intervene in some cases where the States' have their heads up their arse.

There's always the 8th Amendment, arguing that such expensive phone calls are "excessive fines".

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[Khyber]

"Many states, including California, ship inmates to out of state prisons, where it hard for their families to visit"

A bunch of inmates from either Michigan or Wisconsin sued for that exact practice and won claiming unlawful estrangement.

I bet such a thing could be tried against the prison phone companies.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[hey!]

I assume your tech-idiot mother is functionally literate. Now take that away from her and see if she can manage on her own.

The usual standard for "functional literacy" -- being sufficiently capable at reading and writing to be a competent adult -- is eighth grade level proficiency. 21% of Americans read at a fourth grade level or lower. And when you look at prisoners, the number of read at below the fifth grade level is a staggering 70%.

Add to that that illiteracy tends to run in families, and yes, I'd say that going on the web and following the directions for setting up a google voice number is a challenge for many of these people -- much less reading the terms of service.

Re:Doesn't that present an obvious solution?

[jandersen]

Prisons were never set up for rehabilitating prisoners.

And that is deeply shameful. It is only a minority of prisoners that cannot be rehabilitated under any circumstances, but what you are saying here is that prisons are not even trying; the idea never occurred. Punishment without purpose only breaks a person down and makes him (or her) less fit to come back into society.

What *can* FCC do?

[ilsaloving]

Every article I come across seems to involve the FCC getting slapped down over pretty much everything, especially when it risks a corporations profits.

If no one wants them to regulate anything. why even bother having an FCC at all at this point?

Re:What *can* FCC do?

[SlaveToTheGrind]

This happens to be about the FCC, but really has nothing to do with the FCC per se.

This is about whether a federal agency can regulate purely intrastate activity. The FCC's rules capping costs for state-to-state calls stand.

Re:What *can* FCC do?

[markdavis]

>"This is about whether a federal agency can regulate purely intrastate activity. The FCC's rules capping costs for state-to-state calls stand."

+1 Insightful

Bingo. It has nothing to do with if we think the rates are fair or not. It has to do with the autonomy of the States. If you don't like it in your State, complain to your State, not the Fed.

It is really, really hard for many to swallow the concept that we are are the "United States of America" and not the "Federal State of America."

Re:What *can* FCC do?

[mrchaotica]

So, since this effectively overturns Wickard v. Filburn, the next order of business is abolishing the DEA (since the entire concept of Federal drug prohibition relies on it), right?

Re:What *can* FCC do?

[markdavis]

>"Do you believe calls made from a VOIP phone to a number in the same state uses a different communication system than a VOIP phone to an out-of-state phone?"

It doesn't matter. It is still a caller from within the State calling someone else within the same state State at a State facility and being billed in the same State. It is not a Federal matter, it is a State matter.

Re:What *can* FCC do?

[fafalone]

What's surprising is that they even consider it "purely intrastate". Well, not surprising actually, just sad. Protecting people from being exploited doesn't get the same constitutional exemptions that punishing people does.
The same courts say that the federal government can arrest and imprison you for a plant you grow on your own land exclusively for your own consumption, because that means you're not buying it from someone else who potentially might get their supply from a source that might be in another state, and that effects the market, so that's enough to call it interstate commerce that the feds can regulate (Wickard v. Filburn, Gonzales v. Raich). With a reading like that, the fact that the same wires cross state lines and the same company does business in other states and almost certainly some information about the call is stored on a computer in another state, well that's clearly even more of an interstate activity! But sadly for prisoners and their families they don't qualify for the Drug Exception to all limits the constitution places on the federal government.

Cross state is all you need.

[BlueCoder]

Long distance calls are as cheap as local ones so all it takes is buying a calling card or an organization willing to set up an at cost dial in card for prisoners.

And there needs to seriously be a shamming program for administrators and bureaucrats that advocate stupid things like gauging prisoners.

Re:Cross state is all you need.

[BankRobberMBA]

Prisoners typically have access to only one service provider for telephone/videophone/email services. The providers are all profiteers. They can easily provide cheaper services, but their motivation is to pursue monopoly pricing. Some inmates have had success with Google numbers, but others complain of poor sound quality.

There used to be several number selling companies that would sell local numbers to prisoners' families (which made calls cheaper), but a lot of them went out of business when FCC capped prices on long distance calls. Maybe they'll come back now to provide long distance numbers? Probably not enough volume of business to make it worthwhile.

Re:Cross state is all you need.

[tlhIngan]

Prisoners typically have access to only one service provider for telephone/videophone/email services. The providers are all profiteers. They can easily provide cheaper services, but their motivation is to pursue monopoly pricing.

Of course they can provide cheaper services. A local call in most areas is FREE. And long distance is a penny or less a minute (or even free) in plenty of areas.

Except in prison, where you can pay dollars per minute for a local call. Not even satellite phones cost that much! Hell, even cellphones at their most expensive 30 years ago were still cheaper than a prison phone call. Long distance could easily cost more than what NASA pays to call the ISS. Hell, I bet even a phone call to Mars would cost less than from prison. (And no, prisoners cannot pay for it - it's always collect).

Re:Sounds like a states issue

[David_Hart]

So the correct answer to the problem would be to complain to the states' own legislatures, which are supposed to be more responsive to their constituents than federal organizations anyway.

Except that the States are also benefiting both by the creation of for-profit prison systems and the sharing of revenue from scams like this. In my opinion, a prison system should never be privatized. There is too much opportunity for the exploitation of prisoners.

Re:Don't do the crime, you won't have to do the ti

[suutar]

staying out of trouble != not doing the crime. Some examples.

Re:Internet calls cost 0.001 cent per hour

[Anonymous Coward]

it's back to being Whitey's fault

I'd have said "Orangey", personally.

Re:Don't do the crime, you won't have to do the ti

[brantondaveperson]

That's obviously a completely irrelevant, and shockingly callous statement. Don't you find it a little strange that the more disadvantaged someone in your society is, the more difficult and expensive everything becomes? Live in a poor neighbourhood, pay more in insurance. Suffer poor health, pay more in health insurance, if you can even get it. Wind up in jail, be unable to afford a telephone call to your family, who may very well be the only people you have left.

The whole thing is tilted, so that once you start falling, you tend to keep going, and there may be no way back. Whatever good fortune you have experienced in your lifetime, I'd wager much of it came from luck. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps you pulled yourself out of the gutter, perhaps you were born into poverty, suffered ill-health, wound up in jail through no real fault of your own, and still managed to survive, and eventually to overcome.

But that's pretty vanishingly unlikely. I certainly didn't. I was born with good health, a reasonable brains, into a comfortable situation. Education was both provided for free, and I was expected to undertake it. When I completed it, a job was easy to come by. I bumped into a wonderful girl by accident, and how I have a beautiful family, and a good and happy life. All of that, all of it, was nothing better than luck. That luck could change any day. I am not so conceited and blind to imagine otherwise.