FCC Lowers Some Prison Phone Rates After Blaming States For High Prices (arstechnica.com) 39
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission today voted unanimously to lower the prices inmates pay for phone calls from prisons and jails, but the organization reiterated its position that state governments must take action to lower prices on the majority of inmate calls. Today's action is a proposal to "substantially reduce [the FCC's] interstate rate caps -- currently $0.21 per minute for debit and prepaid calls and $0.25 per minute for collect calls -- to $0.14 per minute for debit, prepaid, and collect calls from prisons, and $0.16 per minute for debit, prepaid, and collect calls from jails." This is part of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which means the commission will take public comment before finalizing the new caps and could change the plan before making it final.
Since the proposed rate cap limits prices on interstate calls only, it won't affect the approximately 80 percent of prison calls that don't cross state lines. Last month, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai urged state governments to cap intrastate calling prices, saying the FCC lacks authority to do so. Pai said that "33 states allow rates that are at least double the current federal cap, and 27 states allow excessive 'first-minute' charges up to 26 times that of the first minute of an interstate call." Prison phone companies Global Tel*Link and Securus Technologies have repeatedly challenged FCC-imposed rate limits in court. But while the Obama-era FCC fought in court to lower intrastate rates, Pai in January 2017 instructed FCC lawyers to drop the commission's court defense of the FCC cap on intrastate calling rates. The FCC might have lost that case anyway, as previous court rulings went against the commission. But Pai's decision to drop the court defense helped ensure that the FCC wouldn't be able to cap intrastate rates. The report notes that the FCC also took action to lower some of the "ancillary" fees prison phone companies apply to both interstate and intrastate calls.
Since the proposed rate cap limits prices on interstate calls only, it won't affect the approximately 80 percent of prison calls that don't cross state lines. Last month, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai urged state governments to cap intrastate calling prices, saying the FCC lacks authority to do so. Pai said that "33 states allow rates that are at least double the current federal cap, and 27 states allow excessive 'first-minute' charges up to 26 times that of the first minute of an interstate call." Prison phone companies Global Tel*Link and Securus Technologies have repeatedly challenged FCC-imposed rate limits in court. But while the Obama-era FCC fought in court to lower intrastate rates, Pai in January 2017 instructed FCC lawyers to drop the commission's court defense of the FCC cap on intrastate calling rates. The FCC might have lost that case anyway, as previous court rulings went against the commission. But Pai's decision to drop the court defense helped ensure that the FCC wouldn't be able to cap intrastate rates. The report notes that the FCC also took action to lower some of the "ancillary" fees prison phone companies apply to both interstate and intrastate calls.
Hang on a second (Score:4, Insightful)
"...prison phone companies can't charge more than $3 for making automated payments by phone or website; $5.95 for making payments with a "live agent;" and $2 for "paper bill fees."
There's your problem. You're letting rapacious felons run the service, when they were the ones intended to use it.
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Re:Hang on a second (Score:5, Insightful)
If only just one state had the idea of mandating free phone calls for inmates to their families and seeing what effect it had on recidivism.
Low recidivism is bad for business [wikipedia.org].
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Are you really equating murder to usurious intrastate phone charges?
Re: Hang on a second (Score:3)
We dont even know if the guy even knew he was passing a counterfeit bill. He very well could have been another victim of counterfeit himself. Would you know, if some gas station gave you bogus $20 that looked convincing enough to not question? How many of us swipe our cash with those special pens?
The post purchase behavior would seem to point that he had no clue, as he remained in the parking lot right outside for 20min hanging out with his friends. It was just as possible one of his friends gave him the ca
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Re:Hang on a second (Score:4, Interesting)
Technically they are being constrained from interacting with others. Those undergoing correctional services, they should NOT be allowed to initiate calls except to people who have registered to accept calls from that inmate. They can receive calls but they should not be able to initiate a call. At most they should discuss the call with a correctional services officer, why they want to initiate that call and then the correctional officer should go through a procedure to make sure the person receiving the call, wants to receive the call. The call should be free and be of limited time and number, say two calls a day of ten minutes a call.
They should also be in their own cell, they should be protected from each other by law. They should have internet access, not to the world wide web, but a carefully collated correctional services web adjusted to promote better healthier attitude obviously completely free of commercial advertising. Complete with a range of educational software and a choice of non-violent teaching games. They can be allowed monitored web chat amongst themselves, learning how to communicate properly. Again this access should be free and it should be internal only, they should not be allowed to access the world wide web.
Private for profit prisons should pay a penalty for recidivism, they should be penalised tens of thousands of dollars for each person that goes through their system and commits another crime upon release. The private for profit prison failed in the duty to minimise recidivism and should be fined for the suffering they have now caused, the next victim of that recidivist criminal. Want to make a profit from that shite, you should pay the cost when you fail at it.
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Recidivism is a pipe dream. The rates don't change across states or regardless of the amount of money you pump in.
California has done, by any measure, the most to address recidivism and applies the most liberal of social theories including the greatest limitations on courts to opt for incarceration: http://www.cjcj.org/news/11350 [cjcj.org]
Criminals are criminals, you can't take it out of them. Some people end up in jail through mistakes and learn (20-50% depending on the offense), the majority get second and third an
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I hear from "people" (Score:2)
that it's much cheaper if you use a cell phone smuggled into prison in someones butt.
Getting ready for Trump (Score:1)
May be they are getting ready for Trump - he'll need a lot of minutes to call in his tweets from jail.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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The only profit for the state is on tax revenue - I suspect the problem is the prison is prevented from running the phone system for prisoner calls, so it falls to a third party that happily soaks it's (literally) captive customer base.
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Most prisons are privately run ( as I understand it, someone correct me if I'm wrong ), so they are indeed trying to profit off of their charges.
Re:It should be $0.00 (Score:5, Informative)
No, not even close - in 2012 it was 90% public, 10% private - that the percentage of inmates (state and federal) in each. (1.3M in public vs 137K in private).
Lin k: https://www.vox.com/2015/9/10/... [vox.com]
Later numbers show a change by 2016:
Private prisons incarcerated 128,063 people in 2016, which is 8.5% of the total state and federal prison population. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are 1,506,800 incarcerated people total in the US.
Link: https://www.criminaljusticepro... [criminalju...ograms.com]
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Ah, thank you for correcting my uninformed opinion on this matter.
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No, not even close - in 2012 it was 90% public, 10% private - that the percentage of inmates (state and federal) in each. (1.3M in public vs 137K in private).
Lin k: https://www.vox.com/2015/9/10/... [vox.com]
Later numbers show a change by 2016:
Private prisons incarcerated 128,063 people in 2016, which is 8.5% of the total state and federal prison population. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are 1,506,800 incarcerated people total in the US.
Link: https://www.criminaljusticepro... [criminalju...ograms.com]
So the private percentage dropped.
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Re: It should be $0.00 (Score:3)
Are you aware of the phone scams run out of jails by prisoners using smuggled phones? Its actually a thing. No, making it $0.00 will mean tax payers have to foot the toll charges for the millions of minutes for the purpose of scams. Imagine reading headlines that your tax dollars were used to deprive elderly people of their life savings... phrased in that context you would be equally offended, by mere headlines, arguing for the exact opposite position.
There is still a cost to deliver calls, and a cost to si
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You can limit the amount of calls that are made from prisons by limiting the amount of time each prisoner can be on the phone and by limiting the number of phones in each prison. American tax payers already clothe, feed and take care of the prisoners. If the cosy was so unpalatable, then maybe you should lobby to get most prisoners free!
Re: It should be $0.00 (Score:3)
Please, did you know in mexico they dont even feed them? Its the familys responsibility. I know because a shipmate got into a bar fight in Tijuana and got arrested. The embasy had to take him food everyday until he got out while we set sail without him. Calls are a luxury. Orange jumpsuits are not. Theres no obligation to provide you with a phone at all. The only obligation for communication that they are required to provide you is access to a lawyer. They can deny you visitation and communication anytime
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No mystery... (Score:3)
But while the Obama-era FCC fought in court to lower intrastate rates, Pai in January 2017 instructed FCC lawyers to drop the commission's court defense of the FCC cap on intrastate calling rates. The FCC might have lost that case anyway, as previous court rulings went against the commission. But Pai's decision to drop the court defense helped ensure that the FCC wouldn't be able to cap intrastate rates.
Wheeler's FCC under Obama, repeatedly wasted taxpayer money trying to impose federal regulation on state matters. Pai decided to stop the charade and accept the decision Wheeler's FCC repeatedly got in court.
No judge that ever heard the case or any of the appeals found in the FCC's favor, why should Pai continue that effort?
It truly is a state issue.
Re: No mystery... (Score:2)
Yea sone people are so anti-trump they fail to see what is going on with this and side against the FCC on this. The FCC cannot regulate pay phones and that is essentially the basis on how these work. Payphones get regulated by the states.
If tarrifs wasnt a state thing then FreeConferenceCalling would not get away with $0.02/min termination fees. That cartel of LEC are now blacklisted by 9 carriers. Hell T-mobile plays a message saying its not covered by your calling plan and there is an extra per minute fee
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Yea sone people are so anti-trump they fail to see what is going on with this and side against the FCC on this. The FCC cannot regulate pay phones and that is essentially the basis on how these work. Payphones get regulated by the states.
If tarrifs wasnt a state thing then FreeConferenceCalling would not get away with $0.02/min termination fees. That cartel of LEC are now blacklisted by 9 carriers. Hell T-mobile plays a message saying its not covered by your calling plan and there is an extra per minute fee. One of those vultures, CarrierX LLC, btw, when not exploiting tarrifs, got $2M in PPP. Seems stealing from everyone is their motus operandi
Since these people are in prison they may have a civil rights obligation to ensure that they can stay in contact with their family on the outside.
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I believe access to the phones is a controlled privilege. It certainly isn't a right. So far as I know, the only person a prisoner can ever have a right to communicate with is their lawyer. Even then it might be subject to conditions.
That may very well be. I don't think isolating them from their family is right, though, so I hope they have the right to at least some form of communication even if it is just letters. And you can have a right suspended legally, so even if phone use were to be a right I would not find it objectionable if they could be punished and have that right suspended.
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Look, another crappy click-bait headline! (Score:3)
FCC Lowers Some Prison Phone Rates After Blaming States For High Prices
The FCC lowered the rates it has control over, it blamed states for the rates the states are responsible for.
Just another Anti-Ajit Pai headline that simply is trying to score clicks.
Good news (Score:2)
Lemme check ... (Score:2)
Just allow providers to avoid intrastate charges (Score:2)
The FCC seems to me to currently be keeping a lot of intrastate shenanigans alive, not just for prison calls.
AFAICS the FCC mandates intrastate charges to be paid, even when a call is routed through another state (or in the past they were even routed through another country entirely to avoid the fucking insane intrastate charges). The fact that a third party in another state is involved puts the power to regulate this squarely in their court though. So if they want prisoners to get cheap calls, just allow t