FCC Can Finally Hammer Predatory Prison Phone Call Companies (techcrunch.com) 89
A brand-new law (awaiting only the president's signature) will let the Federal Communications Commission directly regulate rates in the notoriously predatory prison calling industry. From a report: Under the threat of having to provide a solid product for a reasonable price, companies may opt to call it a day and open up the market to a more compassionate and forward-thinking generation of providers. Prison calling systems depend on the state and the prison system, and generally have run the gamut from good enough to shockingly bad. With a literally captive customer base, companies had no real reason to innovate, and financial models involving kickbacks to the prisons and states incentivized income at all costs. Inmates are routinely charged extortionate rates for simple services like phone calls and video calls (an upsell), and have even had visitation rights rescinded, leaving paid calls the only option.
Needless to say, this particular financial burden falls disproportionately on people of color and those with low incomes, and it's a billion-dollar industry. It's been this way for a long time, and former FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn spent years trying to change it. When I talked with her in 2017, before she left the agency, she called inmate calling "the clearest, most glaring type of market failure I've ever seen as a regulator." It was an issue she spent years working on, but she gave a lot of credit to Martha Wright-Reed, a grandmother who had organized and represented the fight to bring reform to the system right up until she died.
Needless to say, this particular financial burden falls disproportionately on people of color and those with low incomes, and it's a billion-dollar industry. It's been this way for a long time, and former FCC commissioner Mignon Clyburn spent years trying to change it. When I talked with her in 2017, before she left the agency, she called inmate calling "the clearest, most glaring type of market failure I've ever seen as a regulator." It was an issue she spent years working on, but she gave a lot of credit to Martha Wright-Reed, a grandmother who had organized and represented the fight to bring reform to the system right up until she died.
No Market (Score:5, Informative)
I would argue that it is not a market failure, because there is no market. The system is set up as a monopoly, and it is controlled by people with a financial stake, so of course it is stacked in their interest. We should ask ourselves why those people are so corrupt, and why nothing was done about it.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a market, and it is controlled by the prison-industrial complex. Don't get me started about trying to pay for a shirt for a prisoner or try to bail one out of jail. 25-95% of the cost of ev
Re:No Market (Score:5, Insightful)
By "prison-industrial complex", do you mean, "government officials who oversee prisons"?
They're the ones who made the actual decisions to create these sole-source contracts preventing any competition for inmate communications. You can't even give money to an inmate without going through their pre-determined vendor. It's government officials overseeing prisons steering exclusive contracts to their buddies.
It's not a market because there is no competing providers allowed. From your definition, it wouldn't be a cattle market if there was only one seller of cattle legally allowed. That'd be a cattle store with a government-imposed monopoly, not a cattle market.
Re: (Score:1)
Whatever you say, this is still good news for the poorest prisoners in jail since any organized prisoner with available money in the outside obviously has his own cell phone in his cell nowadays.
Cell phones have become as available as drugs inside the walls but like anything, they cost 10 times as much or more as they would cost outside the walls so there again, only the poorest suffer.
Talking about the poorest, there is somebody really poor who is like a little brother to me and I can't stop loving him des
Re: No Market (Score:3)
First, private prisons area only 8% of the prisons in the U.S., so if what you're claiming were true, then the other 92% wouldn't have the same issue, and yet they do.
Second, if you go look at the web sites of most states' prisons, they specify the same company as the sole provider for all of that state's prisons. It's not because they all independently chose that monopoly provider, but because the state prison officials mandated or did all of them.
When you see a difference is when the government officials
Re: (Score:2)
By "prison-industrial complex", do you mean, "government officials who oversee prisons"?
"Prison-industrial complex" refers to an industry that has grown up around seeking government money with solely for profit ventures around the exploitation of incarceration. The government plays a part but the main driver is actually the private industry.
The problem here is that there is any vendor involved. If a state were deem a person unfit to be permitted in normal society then the state needs to be responsible for the welfare and security of that person. "State" in any democratic and liberal society
Re: No Market (Score:2)
You don't appear to realize that 92% of the prisons in the U.S. are fully government run, not private prisons.
These issues we're discussing are issues with government prisons run by government officials, although typically things like phone services at state prisons are mandated by state level officials.
This has nothing to do with private organizations, other than the private organizations government officials decide to turn into government monopolies. Without the government officials with the power to bene
Re: (Score:3)
Free markets don't exist without freedom. Prison isn't about freedom. Many prisons don't even guarantee access to any phones. Some won't give you anything but a limited number of stamped envelopes, pencils, and writing pads.
Phone access and store/commissary access is a privilege that can be revoked from prisoners with disciplinary problems. It should come as no surprise that contracts are often awarded to companies run by some official's cousin or friend.
Re: (Score:2)
The USAian prison industry is insane (Score:2)
The USA has a bigger prison population that loads of other countries. It's an outlier in this regard but noth
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
making the most profit possible
Inaccurate. There are practical limits to profiting. At some point, you are tired of earning and want to go spend your money. Even the Ferengi take a break from time to time and spend a few slips of latinum on a lobe massage.
Re: (Score:2)
making the most profit possible
Inaccurate. There are practical limits to profiting. At some point, you are tired of earning and want to go spend your money. Even the Ferengi take a break from time to time and spend a few slips of latinum on a lobe massage.
Wrong, you imply that I said the goal of capitalism is to make 'infinite profit' when I actually said I said: 'most profit possible'. Every host has an upper limit to how much blood a parasite can suck out of it without killing the host. That is kind of implicit in the word 'possible' and no good capitalist wants to kill off his source of income. Try again ....
Re: (Score:3)
That is the goal of the Capitalist. The goal of Capitalism, the economic system implemented by a society is to maximize efficiency and push the cost of goods and services as low as possible.
The role of government in that system is to make sure the markets are vigorous and honest such that the marginal cost approaches the marginal cost of production.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, in a perfectly working capitalist system, profit would be absolutely impossible because as soon as someone makes profit, someone else would provide the same product cheaper and a perfectly informed demand side would choose the best product offered at the best price, which is the price you can provide at cost.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, in a perfectly working capitalist system, profit would be absolutely impossible because as soon as someone makes profit, someone else would provide the same product cheaper and a perfectly informed demand side would choose the best product offered at the best price, which is the price you can provide at cost.
That just goes to my point. , the only way to make a profit in the system you describe is for you to eliminate all competition by whatever means necessary and achieve a monopoly.
Re: (Score:2)
And that's impossible in a perfect capitalist system because as soon as there is profit to be made, a competitor would appear.
Re: (Score:2)
And that's impossible in a perfect capitalist system because as soon as there is profit to be made, a competitor would appear.
That just means you don’t have enough thugs with crowbars and sawn off shotguns because in a perfect capitalist system there is no government, there are no laws and that would be allowed. You are also assuming that there is an infinite supply of competitors who are immune to intimidation neither of which is true. The last capitalist standing gets the monopoly.
Re: (Score:2)
The last capitalist standing also would not have any customer since any customer would immediately become a competitor if there is profit to be had.
Re: (Score:2)
The last capitalist standing also would not have any customer since any customer would immediately become a competitor if there is profit to be had.
Yes, but he would have lots of capital because resources are not evenly distributed because if they were everybody would be self sufficient thus eliminating any need for capitalism. Some capitalists are bound to have access to resources that other capitalist don't have access to. Thus, through complex dynamics of a market with the uneven access to resources necessary for capitalism to exist, capital is going to concentrate somewhere. With that capital he could hire plenty of other capitalists that provide t
Re: (Score:2)
An equal distribution of capital would not result in an elimination of the capitalist system because it is virtually impossible that every single person provides every single good and service they themselves, let alone everyone else, would want and need. It is also not economically feasible to do so, so anyone who tries to provide five different goods and services would be outperformed by five others who run a specialized shop, leading to them trading their goods and services being superior.
Actually, a perf
Re: (Score:2)
There is no point in arguing about spherical cows in a vacuum.
In no real capitalist economy is the barrier to entry in any enterprise zero.
Re: (Score:2)
That's pretty much the point, that the whole "in a capitalist system..." and "capitalism is about..." argument is moot. There is no perfect economic system and it doesn't matter one bit what the system is about.
Re: (Score:2)
There's so many industries with very high barriers to entry that prevent competition, especially competition that promises no profit, that competitors don't appear.
Re: (Score:2)
In a perfect capitalist system, these things would be taken into consideration and since the industries providing the necessary infrastructure required to provide the goods and services could also not make a profit for the same reason, the problem does not apply since it applies universally for everyone.
Re: (Score:2)
"Capitalism" is not the term for "government created and run prison systems".
A bunch of government officials using their office to benefit their buddies with exclusive contracts? Yes, that is typical of how government at all levels tends to work, though.
Re: (Score:2)
In a purely Capitalist society, government is for sale to the highest bidder.
Re: (Score:2)
In a purely Capitalist society, government would longer a be monopoly, nor be able to enable other monpolies. Providers of the services our current government supposedly supplies, like prison communications, for example, would need to compete with each other to serve their customers, rather than have a government official declare that they're the only supplier who is allowed in that niche.
In short, government official's decisions being for sale to the highest bidder (in whatever currency - money isn't the o
Re: (Score:2)
I guess it depends on the definition of capitalist society. Some throw in the free market into the definition but the simplest is that the Capitalist uses their capital to control the means of production.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree, there's a bit of a disconnect on terms there.
But even using your definition, how would government officials doing something be capitalist? There is no capital involved on the control side, it's all regulations with politicians and government bureaucrats making all the decisions. The only (minimal) capital which becomes involved are the friends of the politicians supplying a tiny bit of capital to fund a few telephones per prison and a website to collect people's money. This is hardly a capital-inte
Re: (Score:2)
If you think of the politicians as a product for sale, by buying them you get the regulations etc to give a very good return on your investment.
Re: The USAian prison industry is insane (Score:2)
Which is the same under any governmental or economic system except left-wing anarchism and anarcho-capitalism. The currency may just shift a bit, but paying for governments favors in lots of ways (Cash, favors, personal services, other goods, etc...) is pretty universal, not something associated with capitalism.
Re: (Score:2)
True.
Re: (Score:2)
The US prison system is a disgrace, but nether side of US politics has any interest in fixing it, so ts very difficult to get any reform.
Re: (Score:2)
This is monopolism not capitalism.
Re: (Score:1)
"The USA has a bigger prison population that loads of other countries."
Alternatively, the US has more people in prison than the population of loads of other countries.
Part of the "slavery" system (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
If you're Chinese and from a privileged class and need a transplant, look no further than the Chinese prison system. Remember how the Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted for years upon years? Too many people were joining together to do yoga that the government feared that there could be an uprising, so they imprisoned a bunch of them. What's fresher than organs from a 20-year-old athlete? Nothing. Take your pick. Plus, they have been known to strap p
Re: (Score:1)
Ever picked out a lobster at a fine restaurant? If you're Chinese and from a privileged class and need a transplant, look no further than the Chinese prison system. Remember how the Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted for years upon years? Too many people were joining together to do yoga that the government feared that there could be an uprising, so they imprisoned a bunch of them. What's fresher than organs from a 20-year-old athlete? Nothing. Take your pick. Plus, they have been known to strap people to a table and rob their organs while they're awake. Yeah, China has nothing on the USA!
Awwww .... America, the victim. Is there a reason why you didn't mention that one of the best customers for those organs are degenerate US capitalists?
Re: (Score:3)
Well, the mind-set behind this is certainly inspired by slavery and tries to emulate it as closely as possible. Makes everybody that profits and everybody that keep this system in place complete scum.
Re: (Score:2)
China has the trade in prisoners' harvested organs. It's roughly one billion dollars a year.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh da po' po' child-raping felons. Since the felony rate among Bantu is 9x ( or 18x ) that of white/yellow/red Americans you can expect any prison-related item to justly rake-their-criminal-ass over hot coals. Percentage is held DOWN by simpering judges, but that's another story. Instead of nice/cosy/warm prisons w/3-squares I advise bread/water , tent & bard-wire Utah gulag, where all Trotsky-slut and NIKElooting scabs are kept. A 12x12 pen is all you need. No visitors & fones so no parking-lot or fone costs. Sc orpions and sidewinders are thick, so turnover is high. No loss.
Lot of incest where you live, I take it?
Re: (Score:2)
Lot of incest where you live, I take it?
Seems suspiciously fond of Utah.
Re: (Score:2)
Why bother posting as AC? I think you just outed yourself as noshellswill, and it's not as if you were saying anything less objectionable under that identity.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are they even allowed phone calls in the first place? They are there for a reason. A simple and cheap bullet to the head right in the court room as soon as the verdict is read would solve so many of the problems in this country.
Yeah, right. Firstly it would encourage relatively small-time criminals to erase any and all witnesses, and secondly it makes it difficult to release people who were framed by crooked cops or racist "witnesses". But I guess neither of those are a problem in the fantasy world you inhabit in your mom's basement.
Re: (Score:2)
Covering theft is already built and priced in to every system we have, including your credit card. Why punish anyone when we can all pay in advance for their crimes?
As for 'crooked cops or racist "witnesses"' - there would be a lot less of even that if everyone is afraid of actual consequences.
Re: (Score:3)
You know what was true back when they used to hang people for every small infraction? They hanged people all the time. Somehow, the fear of being hanged did not cause the supply of people to be hanged to dry up. Maybe your idea that fear of consequences is so powerful at stopping crime should be re-examined? I mean, since it's been shown time and time and time again in the real world that it just doesn't work.
Re: (Score:2)
There are quite a few few arguments against it. The most basic is that it offends the most basic notions of of justice for the punishment to be grossly disproportionate to the crime. Sane people think that flaying a person alive for taking the tag off a mattress is not just, not to mention not remotely sane. As for Mao's PRC and the British Empire, neither of those are remembered as shining examples of justice. Quite the opposite.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd love to read about an argument why having a heavy punishment for any crime is not a good thing?
It's not complicated.
Firstly, many criminals are stupid and believe that they have a fool-proof plan to not get caught. If you don't get caught, the punishment is irrelevant.
Secondly, some criminals are smart and actually don't get caught. If you don't get caught, the punishment is irrelevant.
Thirdly, innocent people get convicted for crimes every day of the week. If you didn't even commit the crime, the punishment is irrelevant AND there's no way to release someone you hanged by mistake.
Both of your exampl
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Found the psychopath that does not qualify as human.
pay jury's more so don't get people who can't get (Score:2)
pay jury's more so don't get people as meany people who can't get off on them.
Buzzwords (Score:2)
"Predatory"
Predatory? You're in prison!
"falls disproportionately on people of color and those with low incomes".
Disproportionate to what?
Re: (Score:3)
You probably think that rape of prisoners is OK, too because "You're in prison!".
There is plenty of evidence that communication with the outside world reduces recidivism. This is profiteering at the expense of society.
Re: (Score:2)
Possibly for a 'crime' that harmed nobody and had no feature that could be considered predation.
Re: (Score:2)
Innovation? (Score:2)
Look, it's a phone system. It's a solved technology. Even under ideal circumstances how much innovation are you expecting here?
Yeah, the situation sucks. It sucks hard. It's predatory and victimizes the families of inmates. By all means, get rid of it any every other bit of corruption the prison system has. But even when you do so I don't think we're going to see any sort of "innovation" in prison phone systems.
Re: (Score:2)
There are legislatively rejected technologies, such as meaningful Caller-ID. It's much too easily and frequently spoofed, with no consequences who hide commercial spam, fraudulent and abusive behaviors behind fraudulent phone numbers.
Let all voice and video calls be free! (Score:1)
Hahah nuclear fusion (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure the scammers will be silenced any day now, just as soon as we have power from nuclear fusion.
Finally (Score:2)
No more dollars/minute phone calls, and only from one phone number (never mind that the person calling in might - let's be really crazy here - have a job, and wants to call from work).
Wonder if the PoS Brevard Co., FL at least lets you call someone from a cell phone, or if they still require a land line to call in.
Re: (Score:2)
or if they still require a land line to call in
With a land line, law enforcement has a decent chance of tracking that end point of the call. That discourages gang leaders doing time from continuing to run operations from their cell. Prepaid disposable cellphones* are still a thing for anonymous calling.
*Or sometimes, they just wait until you unlock your phone to make a call, slide a blade between your ribs, take your phone and conduct a bit their own business. If you survive, you will have to explain why that hit was ordered from your phone.
some might say (Score:2)
...that a way to avoid this would be to not go to prison, or just completely ban all phone calls to/from prison.
Don't like it?
Maybe don't go to prison.
Re: (Score:2)
I foresee prison in your future.
Great version of "if you're not a criminal, you don't need to worry".
Let's just ignore crooked prosecutors (they're supposed to recuse themselves, if they have personal issues with the suspect, but the one in Brevard Co didn't, and they busted my late ex for terrorism.
Want to bet you can't be arrested, tried, and convicted if someone in power decides they don't like you?
If you don't think that can happen, you're an idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
if someone in power decides they don't like you?
Of if you just fuck up... But I'm sure Mr. High Horse never stole anything as a kid, never drove after having one too many beers, never got in an altercation while defending his kid/spouse/friend, etc. They probably don't understand that, in addition to punishment, prison is intended to give the offender the ability to rehabilitate and re-integrate to society. Part of a successful rehabilitation is continued contact with loved ones. But hey, the view is all rosy when you're looking down your nose. (To
Re: (Score:2)
Is it your assertion that the majority of people in prison were put there by "crooked prosecutors"?
What percent, would you say?
It's as bad as you think it is. (Score:1)
Utility (Score:3)