These days, most of us are staying in touch with our loved ones by phone calls or video chats. A single phone call costs us nearly nothing, a video chat requires only a Wi-Fi connection.
But for millions of people, it isn’t so easy. As jails and prisons suspend in-person visits, most incarcerated people and their families are paying outrageously high costs to simply stay connected. The Federal Bureau of Prisons just made voice and video visitation free in its 122 prisons, and while noteworthy, this isn’t enough to ensure that the majority of families can remain in touch at such a crucial time. The majority of the incarcerated population, upwards of 1.7 million people, are in state prisons and local jails, where they will probably face excessive fees to call home. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) needs to push prison phone companies to lower their rates so every family can maintain a connection during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Incarcerated people, their families and other allies have been fighting for phone justice for years, but a pandemic like COVID-19 reminds us once again how cruel and unjust these exorbitant call rates are and why rate relief is needed immediately. Prison call rates can cost over $1 a minute and on average, an in-state phone call from jail costs three times as much as one from prison. The national average for a 15-minute call from jail is $5.74. Thanks to a helpful tool from the Prison Policy Institute, I know that by the time it takes you to read this op-ed, a call from New York’s Allegheny County Jail for this amount of time would cost about $7.50, just shy of New York’s tipped wage for a single hour of work.
My friend who’s brother is in prison get charged .15 PER EMAIL
Prison phone companies have always been exploiting inmates and their families. There were outrageous costs even during the digital age, and even for families calling in on cellphones with plans. The rooms were noisy, dirty, eight people crammed in a small room about three feet from the next person, no privacy, you could barely hear, phones stink and were sticky from dirt. This is why cell phones were going for incredible costs to anyone that could smuggle one in. It is just like the CP farce. It takes many companies and individuals to turn a blind eye for it to happen. Lots of people benefit off of the overpriced phone calls in prison, as lots of people benefit from having CP floating around uninterrupted on the net.
I got released from a northwoods Wisconsin prison last fall. For years they contracted with the monopoly dominated Securas phone company that charged .12 a minute instate and .18 a minute out of state. So I paid a pretty penny cause 90% of my calls were made out of state. But suddenly last spring, the DOC dropped the Securas contract in favor of Century Link who slashed rates up to 67% I couldn’t believe it! Now everybody started paying .06 a minute including out of state callers. The change in policy had to do with the prison reforms of the new democratic governor who replaced Scott Walker but there had to be some bipartisan effort with the GOP dominated legislature, but whatever the reason, .06 a minute calls were fine with me. The only problem was the same inmates that hogged the phones before begun to hog the phones even more because of the cheaper rates. And the unit CO’s were too lazy to enforce the 20 minute time limit, so I really wasn’t able to get on the phone most of the time. I’ve been out for six months now, so I can’t tell you for sure if the DOC went back to their old ways and jacked the phone rates back up again, who knows.
Their whole business was built to stick it to inmates and families. Find a way to scam them back…yeah if it were only that easy lol. Actually the best thing to do is to minimize usage. Keep calls to once or twice a week. Say the things that matter the most.
You can also call the jails and keep their ears tied up. Get names and details. They’ll lie, they’re trained to minimize the situation and waste as much time as possible. And get involved, write to civil rights agencies or the bbb. Maybe one day it’ll be a fair system.