The 12 Days of #PhoneInjustice Redux

You may have caught my tweetstorm over the past few days highlighting several examples of bad practices when it comes to our nation's inmate calling services regime. Sadly, there are many more examples, particularly when it comes to city and county jails where some of the highest intrastate inmate calling rates across the country remain in effect.

Arkansas County, Arkansas, for one, charges almost $25 for a 15 minute call; Clare County, Michigan charges $22.56; and in a Natrona County, Wyoming facility it costs $9.47 to speak to an inmate for 15 minutes. Contrast that with a 15 minute voice call from a mobile provider at $0.28, and you see why families and children of inmates are as captive to the system as their loved ones. Given that the median income of a male inmate before incarceration is $19,650, how do you suppose he (or the family left behind) can be expected to pay a phone bill that is 8800% higher than before he began his sentence? And while voice rates and usage are on the decline for the majority of consumers, charges for inmates continue to rise in most communities.

Despite attempts at reform when the FCC made substantial concessions as it voted to approve rates that far exceeded what the data for over 90% of the providers own unaudited numbers substantiated, Inmate Calling Services (ICS) companies continue to fight to keep their excessive profits flowing. For example, when the Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 Order eliminated all but three ancillary fees (that historically added as much as 40% to the cost of ICS calls), Securus, one of the largest providers of ICS, effectively transferred the now disallowed connection fees into “first minute rates.” On top of that, they lowered the prepaid account maximum deposit, so that the company would be able to continue charging inmates and their families exorbitant rates including when they add money into the inmate's account! No one except an inmate and/or his/her family, pays more for the first minute of a call; no one except an inmate (family) pays a fee in order to PREPAY their telephone bill. No one.


The 12 Days of #PhoneInjustice Redux