Pubdate: Thu, 01 Oct 2015
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
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HIGH COST OF INMATES' PHONE CALLS MAY COME TO AN END

FCC Weighs Action; Rates Can Run As High As $14 a Minute

The Federal Communications Commission will decide next month whether 
to limit rates and service fees for phone calls made by prison and 
jail inmates, a senior agency official said on Wednesday.

The commission is seeking to regulate the $1.2 billion phone industry 
serving prisons and jails, which has been criticized for overcharging 
inmates' families.

Rates for phone calls from jails and prisons are typically far more 
expensive than normal commercial charges and can cost as much as $14 
a minute. Service fees often add another 40 percent, resulting in 
phone bills as high as $500 a month, inmates' families and prison 
advocacy groups say.

The proposed rules would impose a rate of 11 cents a minute on state 
or federal prison calls and cap the cost of calls made from local 
jails at 14-22 cents a minute, based on the size of the jail.

Those amounts generally fall between the rate of about 5 to 7 cents a 
minute that inmates' families and prison advocates sought.

Alex Friedmann, associate director of the Human Rights Defense 
Center, which has long pushed for lower phone rates in jails and 
prisons, said Wednesday that the FCC proposal did not go far enough.

"The changes will benefit prison families, but not to the extent that 
they could, and not to the extent that we had hoped that they would," he said.

Jails and prisons around the country have in recent years become 
financially reliant on revenue received from prison phone companies, 
which pay millions of dollars in concession fees - called commissions 
- - to win exclusive contracts.

High concession fees drive up the cost of phone calls because the 
companies say they must try to recover their investment.

In 2013, $460 million in concession fees was paid to jails and 
prisons, and to state, county and local governments, according to the 
FCC. The fees are legal and are used to pay a range of expenses for 
jails and prisons, as well as local governments.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom