The FCC just addressed the high cost of prison phone calls by closing loopholes on July 18, 2024.
This follows the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act signed into law by President Biden in January 2023.
Previously, the FCC could only regulate interstate calls, leaving in-state calls with potentially exorbitant rates. The new rules address this by setting national price caps and eliminating the ability of phone companies to charge for certain non-essential services. This is expected to significantly reduce the cost of calls for incarcerated individuals and their families.
More details:
- Capped Rates: They established new rate caps for both phone and video calls. This means there’s a maximum price per minute that providers can charge. In large jails, a 15-minute call could cost as much as $11.35 before, but now it’s capped at just $0.90. There are different caps depending on the jail size.
- Closed Intrastate Loophole: Previously, the FCC could only regulate interstate (out-of-state) calls. Now, they’ve closed a loophole that allowed companies to charge exorbitant rates for in-state calls as well. This brings all calls under their regulatory umbrella.
- Video Call Regulation: For the first time, video calls are also included in the regulations. Their prices are capped at a fraction of what they were before, and providers must offer per-minute billing options.
Worth Rises, a nonprofit group advocating for prison reform, said that the “primary factors driving the FCC’s lower rate caps is the exclusion of security and surveillance costs as well as the exclusion of commissions. For decades, the cost of an ever-expanding suite of invasive surveillance services has been passed on to incarcerated people and their loved ones. With today’s new rules, prison telecoms will be barred from recovering the cost of the majority of such services from ratepayers.”
These changes are expected to significantly reduce the financial burden on incarcerated individuals and their families.