Prisoners could see phone bills go down

Prison inmates appear poised to see their phone bills go down. 

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will vote next month on a plan to cap the price prison and jail inmates can be charged to a make a phone call, which far exceeds the standard rate of a regular call. 

{mosads}Democratic FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn has spearheaded reform and put the issue in a civil rights context. In a blog post on Wednesday, she described it as the smart thing to do. 

“Multiple studies have shown that having meaningful contact beyond the prison walls can make a real difference in maintaining community ties, promoting rehabilitation, and reducing recidivism,” she wrote.

Under the order, the vast majority of prison inmates would not be charged more than 11 cents per minute — a more than 50 percent cut for the current cap on interstate calls. Inmates in smaller prisons and jails would be charged higher rates to cover phone company costs.  

The new cap would apply to all calls — including within a state, between states or internationally. The commission previously capped interstate calls, but not others. 

A number of other service charges would also be limited. Inmates must usually put money into a phone account in order to make calls, which result in transaction fees. The FCC would cap those fees at between $2 and $6, while barring others.  

The inmate calling industry is dominated by a few companies with large shares of the market, including Global Tel Link — a firm whose name was made popular in the opening credits of the “Serial” podcast in which a journalist digging through the facts of a decades-old murder case talks with inmate Adnan Syed through the phone service. 

Clyburn has highlighted extreme cases of high call rates, including a four-minute phone call to an inmate’s attorney costing $56 with fees.

“Even if this is an extreme case, the fact that it’s possible tells you the system needs fixing,” she said.  

In the order, the commission is also attempting to discourage so-called site commission payments, which are huge payments that phone providers pay to prisons in order to win a contract. The FCC previously found that the payments have no real relation to inmate calls. 

Phone companies in the past have factored in those payments when determining reasonable rates to charge inmates. The companies have justified higher prices by saying they need to recoup other costs. 

The commission would not bar those payments, but the order defines “commission payments” broadly and excludes those costs when factoring in the caps. 

In a fact sheet, the commission said the order allows monitoring of “the effect of site commissions on rates but does not restrict [inmate calling services] providers’ sharing or profits if such payments fit within the rate caps.”