FCC votes to limit prison telecom charges

It's absolutely grotesque to me.

Florida charges their inmates $50/day as a "bed fee" that they must pay when they are released. If you were found guilty and sentenced to 5 years in prison, but were released after 1 month because your charge was overturned, you still have to pay the fee for the full 5 years you would have been there.

It makes me ashamed to be an American.

I’m all for successful businesses operating within the parameters of the law, but is it not also correct to expect some adherence to a minimum ethical standard?

Exploitation is what it is. Legal or not, it’s gross and it’s what these companies have been doing for years without consequences.

The rates aren’t even really accurately reflected in those per-minute tables. There are also a lot of service charges and other fees, blocks of time must be purchased with minimum amounts ($20 minimum is not uncommon), and then fees are taken from the prepaid funds as they are used, causing the balance to decline much faster than one might expect, and allowing the service providers to further conceal their deceptive billing practices.

Actual average rates can easily exceed $0.50/min, and it shouldn’t be surprising that the folks who depend on these services to maintain family and relationships are frequently not the most flush with cash. This has been a brazen redistribution of funds from those who have the least resources, to those who have the least conscience.

Somewhat relevant, video calls have been hailed as improving the ability for incarcerated individuals to keep in touch with their loved ones. This is also a cynical lie. Video calls have been used nearly across the board as an excuse to end in-person visitation. It’s cruel, and should be stopped. Some minimum visitation should be afforded to inmates, particularly since many of them are pre-trial and presumed innocent, and in any case their families and loved ones deserve to maintain contact with them, not to mention it’s a positive reinforcement towards rehabilitation and reducing recidivism.

1. The government decides that prisoners can make phone calls, but they can only use a single prison-approved phone operator, and that operator is a private company.

You're saying "the government" a lot, but AFAIK there's no specific federal mandate of any kind to the effect of requiring a specific company handle calls at all jails and prisons. If anything that is the consequence of an absence of any specific regulation rather than the presence of one, which is completely the opposite of the point you seem to be making.

In reality, a variety of completely separate state and local correctional facilities put the service out to bid. If anything, it is federal level prisons that would most fit the description of "the government" where you have the best regulations, where there is scrutiny of the bidding process, where there are already caps to limit the expenses associated with calls.

At the county and municipal level, companies that tend to win the contracts have special deals in the form of a "site commission" payments, which are a kickback to the prisons, incentivizing them to give a monopoly to whichever company charges the most and kicks back the most to the prison.

Edit: I feel like I (1) spoke directly to what the parent commenter was saying (2) stated uncontroversial facts, (3) echoing a point a chorus of other commenters are making about what "the government" really means, but I'm seeing a bunch of drive-by downvotes. Would appreciate if anyone wants to chime in and help me understand what I'm missing.

I can't really wrap my mind around the idea that communications in the prison system should be paid by the inmates going straight through a private company. If somebody told me this was some lore from Bioshock I'd tell them the joke is too on the nose.

Who knows, maybe I'm just too... european to truly understand.

What I'd really like to know instead is the conversation that your representatives and the telco board had on the matter. Also, the golf course where it happened.

Because I'd bet very good money that nobody in the current (or any previous) administration is in any way surprised with the outcome.

"the government" as an entity here really elides the difference between the federal government and state governments; state governments hold the majority of prisoners in the US and the ability of the federal government (via the FCC) to regulate prison phone calls that do not cross state lines is new since 2022.

But even on top of that, what would the dream free market implementation even look like here? An entire licensure and certification system for these tablets which will inevitably be crammed with as many upsells as the law does not prohibit? What is the recourse for someone who is in prison and chooses a company whose products do not work? Are they supposed to call tech support?

Why should the phone be operated by a third party for profit? Why are prisons operated for profit?

Absolutely key to understanding this is that "government" in (1) is a state-level government which has been bribed by the private phone company.

This sort of thing happens at every level, but it's more often than not the Federal government preventing abuses by the states.

Edit: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2019/02/11/kickbacks-and-c... - it's even more blatant, they're paying a large share of this revenue directly to local governments.

Phone calls should be a human right. The govt should just make these calls free. We want these folks to be able to connect with family and maintain connection to give them the best chance of integrating back. Charging for phone call is unnecessarily punitive.

“Instantly” here meaning “potentially, after current contract obligations end & institutions complete the switch to a new provider”.

I would say the government is at fault here for prohibiting competition, not the companies.

To borrow a slightly old meme, porque no los dos?

If my local government cuts firefighting budgets, and I decide to take advantage of this to become an arsonist, I don't think anyone would say that it's the government at fault for half the town going ablaze.

I could be wrong on the interpretation, but I wonder if this will be one of the first cases challenged based on the Chevron ruling. I would think the challenge would be the law does not specify what the price should be so we can set it to whatever until congress passes a law specifying it.

so much effort to constantly having to play whack a mole with a malicious industry that pays all your politicians election campaigns. I can't imagine the amount of mental gymnastics you have to engage in just having to justify your neoliberal ideology in your own head all the time.

Wait until you hear how much tax payers pay for school lunches and textbooks, prison libraries and commissaries. I also better not mention the bail bond industry. We just aren't doing neoliberalism hard enough yet, don't you see?

These decisions ruin families all so a small group of elites can profit.

I do wish there was an easy way when things like this happen to immediately say, "if you are happy with this FCC decision, here are the politicians responsible, the FCC directors and employees that did nothing for decades, etc." and then we can deny-list those people and their families from polite society.

I would say the government is at fault here for prohibiting competition, not the companies.

We should be naming and shaming the companies that choose the immoral path. That does happen sometimes, but over the last 40 years the US seems to have shifted to "if you can get away with it, that's fine", especially for corporations.

That attitude has waxed and waned over the history of the country, but the progressive era (from the late 19th century) was notably one where doing the right thing (or "doing well by doing good") was considered proper.

This is exactly where lobbying and "money is speech" has gotten us.

Now you understand why healthcare, higher education, big infrastructure, prisons and so much more is so completely broken.

Big companies have bought their way into every level of government so they can extract profit at every step.

Note this is not a bug, this is by design.

It's silly that the government allows for service providers to charge excessive rates, when they should have contracted rates. And your solution is equally absurd.

Provide prisoners with tablets or cellphones and let them choose their own service provider?

You know that prison phone calls are monitored right?

The part you are missing is these private phone operators made deals with private prison operators, no government involved.

The government is still to blame for having private prisons. For everything you point out, a prison should not be private because it's a market with a literal set of captives that cannot choose their prison. That incentives the prison to gouge at every turn.

What strikes me as the likeliest implementation of a fair-market system is what we have in the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) system, which is that the bureaucracy of ensuring fairness is so high that we end up with $400 tablets costing $4,000, as tech companies try to get into the space but find out that they need to hire a team of contract attorneys and compliance officers and DCAA compliant time-reporting software and retraining their employees to use it and be subject to regular audits etc. etc.

How are you supposed to have competition for something like this? Ultimately the prison will only go with one carrier.

Its hard to imagine that they didn't know this would happen based on the USA recent past history with phone pricing.

There was a time (when I was young) where there was just one phone company in the USA. Prices were high for long distance (My mom is first generation so called out frequently). Then deregulation and competition (MCI/Sprint) lowered those prices dramatically.

In the late 90s I lived with roommates that didn't have long distance. We used phone cards we bought at the local convenience store. Those were actually pretty good price wise.

No, the companies are absolutely at fault, just like pay day lenders. Absolute leech’s on society.

I think you missed step zero:

0. Rent-seeking private company/ies realize that prisoners could be a literal captive audience, and successfully lobbies governments (state and federal) to require prisoners to use only a single, prison-approved phone operator.

Also, step 2 is now redundant, and replace step three with "Profit!!!"

Capitalism works really great when there's competition.

When there's a government-sanctioned monopoly like this, you get all of the efficiency and speed of a for-profit corporation, but it all goes in the wrong direction.

I once read a game-theory study somewhere that showed you need four or five operators minimum to avoid monopolistic cooperation.

I actually always hold companies accountable for their actions, whether or not other factors allowed those actions.

They're still price-gouging prisoners because they can. That's still abhorrent behavior.

I do not think the government was at all surprised, punitive charges are very much a part of the prison system in this country[1] this is people deciding to lessen the burden slightly.

[1] https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local-news/i-team-investi...

You raise a fair point. Here's the Act [1] and 47 USC 276 [2] in full, (b)(1)(A) (emphasis added):

(A)establish a compensation plan to ensure that all payphone service providers are fairly compensated, and all rates and charges are just and reasonable, for completed intrastate and interstate communications using their payphone or other calling device, except that emergency calls and telecommunications relay service calls for hearing disabled individuals shall not be subject to such compensation;

What does "just and reasonable" mean? With Chevron deference, courts would have to defer to the FCC on this. Now they don't.

Now Chevron deference is a bigger issue when laws are written more broadly and vaguely like "the EPA should ensure the air is clean". We had 40 years of Congress over multiple administrations deliberately writing laws to defer to Federal agencies.

But a prison telco could still bring suit arguing the rates are not "just and reasonable".

[1]: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/154...

[2]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/276

yeah, “chevron deference” was only really an issue with ambiguously written laws IMO, or agencies taking an overly expansive view of their authority. And they still can, but now those decisions can be challenged in court.

good summary here: https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/chevron-is-out-of-gas-wil...

Ultimately I believe it will be enforced, and then potentially challenged in court. This seems to be the path for most regulation in the USA. So the question always is "Who will challenge this?" because as you point out, it has become easier for challenges to regulations to succeed (at least in theory).

Doubtful, but if it isn't authorized by statute, a law should be passed not regulation.

Trump installed the major prison phone system's ex-lawyer as the head of the FCC last time he got in, just before the prison call price drop was about to be implemented under an Obama-era decision:

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/in-the-news/2017/hrdc-says-f...

Yes, but for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholder.

Maybe the pay for the people surveiling the calls is included?

IIRC, calls to and from inmates are recorded and analyzed. It costs more for the storage, retention and processing of this data, than the mere connection and data transfer.

No. "The regulations adopted today mark the implementation of the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, which established the FCC’s authority to regulate in-state phone and video calls from correctional facilities, in addition to out-of-state phone calls that it had already regulated."

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/154...

Those were my thoughts. I view the price cap as overwhelmingly positive, but start the countdown until the courts / SCOTUS invalidate this. Exploiting the downtrodden is the American way.

This was my immediate question. I'm also curious what in terms of services these vendors actually layer on top of any other phone system. There's clearly a payment processing layer where inmates can store credit to make calls, but are these systems otherwise that different from what would be offered by any other telecom vendor?

From my global (US) understanding of it: Prison telco providers also often provide their services at zero or negative cost to the prison (i.e. commissions on calls or services). They also provide additional "value-add" services to the prisoners which are also extortionally priced (music downloads, ebook purchases).

The tablets are also often starting to replace physical mail - inmates are being denied physical mail, instead letters and drawings being filtered, scanned, and uploaded remotely from elsewhere. Or they can write letters outbound - just have to pay for "digital stamps" - even for electronic mail. Double points for making people on the outside buy the "digital stamps" to send them inwards, too!

Every single corner is designed to extort the prisoner while making themselves look like the Good Guys for providing access to all this information and capabilities in such a safe and controlled manner and at "no cost to the taxpayer!"

The one thing that you may not be aware of that will raise costs above what you may expect is that prisoner communications are generally monitored, and not just "this may be monitored for improved customer service in the future" but you know nobody is actually being paid to listen to all the calls, but actually monitored. Whether you agree with this or not, this does mean the service is going to be more expensive than a straight service normally would be. There's also significant vetting on what apps are allowed, which is also not free.

I'm not making a defense here of any particular price or practice, just giving you a partial answer to your question, in that there are costs in these services above and beyond what you would expect for a "normal" service of this type.

Or is it just that the market for phone providers isn't competitive?

The prison operator has a (joke not intended) captive market and that is exploited by contractors who often share the proceeds with the prison operator.

The economics are simply that prisons are rent-seekers.

Easy startup idea to provide prison phone service via a cheap VoIP provider and use a light weight LLM to flag suspicious transcripts.

Without more information it's hard to know if those companies are just poorly run or if the service really costs that much.

I think society should shoulder to entire cost of prison, and hopefully we think better about who we want in prison and for how long.

This suggests that either they overestimated how big the kickbacks they can pay to the prisons were, or the whole business model wasn't actually that lucrative, and providing phone services to prisoners is actually expensive (likely primarily due to the surveillance requirements).

Another option: those in charge extracted too much money from the business too fast, perhaps believing their days are numbered (or perhaps just out of run of the mill greed).

Not all states have private prisons. Oregon, or example, prohibits them (and prohibits sending Oregon inmates to a private prison in another state). But we still have 9 cents a minute for phone calls. I think it's paid by the outside caller, though, not the inmate.

I generally support prison being a less-than-lavish experience, but charging for phone calls seems over the top. Inhumane, if it prevents inmates from talking with their loved ones. They're still humans, and most of them will get out of prison someday, we should keep that in mind.

I wonder how many people in this thread generally vote for Republicans, who are disproportionally the recipients of for-profit prison company money? https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=G7000

I’m all for government-run rehabilitation focus. I had an entire message about a capitalist stopgap, but every idea I have creates some perverse incentives.

To be clear these fees are just as bad at government run prisons and jails.

Most of the jail and prison systems I know have technical checks in place for Google voice and other VOIP systems to avoid you getting around their charges. They will ban the numbers and then often ban you from the phone system and sometimes put you in the Hole for games like that.

I used to use them to try to call the UK instead of paying multiple dollars a minute when my mother was dying of cancer. But it's a game of cat-and-mouse. And if you're in a place that makes you wait 4-8 weeks to get a number added to your call list, then you can't afford your number to get banned.

Every day I help multiple guys inside do "3-way" calls from prison to numbers that aren't approved onto their lists yet. It's a dangerous game, though, as the calls are often detected and blocked.

I worked for a company which offered a bridge between CorrLinks (federal prison email system) and SMS. The inmate would get their own phone number they could receive messages from, and make outgoing texts as well.

My boss's friend operates https://phonedonkey.com, which provides a VOIP relay service such as what you set up.

Perhaps we could edit the title to reflect that they're limiting the price and not the speed

I just changed it to 'charges', the headline was too long so I was chopping words off.

Amen, brother. I was an advocate for prison reform before getting locked up, but once you're inside and you find out how truly insane everything is, you realize that jails and prisons are where decency and kindness go to die.

I'm in a Zoom conference with the federal court in 45 mins trying to get two constitutional violations at the biggest jail in the country fixed, but obviously the government's lawyers are maintaining that this jail is too big to fix the problems. The judge's line is that if the smallest jails in the country can not violate the rights of the detainees, why can't the biggest? The government is adamant that their size protects them from having to say, provide a working mail system.

The uncomfortable resemblance to slavery and other obviously problematic aspects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal) of it probably has a lot to do with it getting such disproportionate attention. (The vast majority of prisons are still public.) That and it offers an easy, feel-good solution that unfortunately doesn't address systematic problems: just ban private prisons.

Yeah, it's still like this at most places. I use this system every day to communicate with a lot of inmates in prison, trying to get them information from the Internet, mostly legal topics, but also MCU news :)