On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on a proposal to cap the cost of all calls home from prisons and jails and to curtail or ban the abusive fees charged by the industry.
By capping the cost of calls and the fees, the FCC will have established a ceiling on what can be charged. But states and individual counties should — and many will — go even further. There are at least two types of state legislation that could be passed.
Idea 1: Simple fix that the facilities might not like but is really the best way to go.
Ban commissions and require all contracts to be negotiated on the basis of the lowest price to the consumer. New York Corrections Law § 623 is a great model, although an even better version would apply to contracts with local jails as well as state prisons.
Idea 2: Long-term market re-alignment.
Create a statutory ceiling on commission payments on a per minute basis in order to re-align incentives for facilities to effectively negotiate with the vendors for the lowest rates for consumers.
Currently, commissions are typically negotiated on a percentage basis, so facilities have an incentive to tolerate high customer costs, so changing to a fixed per-minute commission would change the incentives, to give the facilities an incentive to favor low-cost higher-volume calls home.
Let me explain.
The FCC’s order caps the maximum that can be charged at 11cents a minute in prisons and, depending on the size of the facility, 14-22 cents a minute in jails. For the sake of this illustration, let’s talk about jails in the 14 cents a minute category.
First, capping the cost at 14 cents will constitute a tremendous and long-needed rate reduction across the country. But how can a state easily ensure that rates continue to move downwards, even in facilities that will not waive their commission?
Under the status quo in the states that allow commissions, the facilities have an incentive to set the rates at the maximum and then demand that the vendors pay the maximum commission. So rates are likely to be at 14 cents forever. As the cost of providing service declines with further advances in technology, the cost might stay at 14 cents while the facilities demand 13.9999 cent commissions.
But if a state were to set a maximum commissions at, say, 3 cents a minute, it would give facilities an incentive to push the rates down in order to increase usage. With such a maximum per minute commission, the rates wouldn’t ever go below the commission level of 3 cents, but the facilities would have an incentive to push the rates down as close to that 3 cents as they can. (We don’t have a position on what the commission amount per minute should be, and we used 3 cents just to illustrate the math.)
As we’ve seen in New York and nationwide, lowering the total price to the families increases the call volumes.
This structure would also give the facilities an incentive to ensure that the vendor doesn’t charge unnecessary fees. Prior to the FCC’s October 2015 ruling, the companies charge hidden fees as a way to recoup lost profits from paying unsustainably high commissions. (The business model is called fee harvesting and shortchanges both the families and the facilities; but since the facilities are already receiving windfalls on the call rates, they often don’t object to the extra fees.)
The new FCC ruling will ban most of the fees that were previously charged by the industry and caps all fees that remain. But as fees eat into the money that families can spend on the actual calls, this proposal gives the facilities a financial incentive to insist on even lower fees as that would further increase the number of minutes used.
New report finds great distances discourage prison visits
October 20, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 20, 2015
Contact:
Bernadette Rabuy
(413) 527-0845
Easthampton, MA — Less than a third of people in state prison receive a visit from a loved one in a typical month, puts forth a new report by the Prison Policy Initiative, Separation by Bars and Miles: Visitation in state prisons. The report finds that distance from home is a strong predictor for whether an incarcerated person receives a visit.
Separation by Bars and Miles finds that most people in state prison are locked up over 100 miles from their families and that, unsurprisingly, these great distances — as well as the time and expense required to overcome them — actively discourage family visits. Given the obvious reluctance of state prison systems to move their facilities, the report offers six correctional policy recommendations that states can implement to protect and enhance family ties. Rabuy explained, “At this moment, as policymakers are starting to understand that millions of families are victims of mass incarceration, I hope this report gives policymakers more reasons to change the course of correctional history.”
The report focuses on incarcerated people in state prisons and is a collaboration between Prison Policy Initiative staff and data scientist Daniel Kopf of the organization’s Young Professionals Network.
Next Thursday, October 22, the Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote on historic regulation of the prison and jail telephone industry. Previous reforms have applied to some calls, but this reform will lower the cost of receiving calls home from prisons and jails for all families of incarcerated people in this country.
I expect that some of the companies and the greedier sheriffs might again sue the government for enacting this important reform. Most of the companies (except for one) are privately held and hard to influence; but sheriffs are elected by all of us.
The sheriffs will have elections coming up. I’d like to make a video addressed to voters faced with re-electing a sheriff who is suing the federal government for regulating the prison and jail telephone industry, setting the decade-long movement for phone justice back even further.
We’ll be looking for writers, actors, editors, camera people, graphic designers, etc. In February, some amazing comedians produced a series of videos that successfully shamed the video visitation industry into dropping its ban on in-person visits. We think we can convince the public of the harm that will come from re-electing sheriffs who want to charge the poorest families in their communities $1 a minute for simple phone calls, but we need your help.
Many of these Sheriffs are outside of the major media markets, but from our work on prison gerrymandering, we know how to get press coverage in rural parts of the country. We need your help to make the video exciting and to make sure it reaches a national audience.
If you or your team can help, please contact us directly or join our Young Professionals Network. (And, please, share this casting call with your networks.)
Private prison companies have found ways to profit on America’s experiment with mass imprisonment, but they are, to build on Ruthie Gilmore’s analogy, less the seed or the fertilizer fueling mass incarceration and more like a parasite on the publicly-owned prison system.
The vast majority of people incarcerated in this country are incarcerated in publicly-owned prisons. Only a small minority is in facilities operated by private companies under contract with states or the federal government. (And things get a little complicated because some “outsourcing” of incarcerated people goes not to private companies but to other governments. For example, almost half of the state prison population in Louisiana is actually housed under contract with local parish governments.)
This graph illustrates the late origin and limited impact of private prisons on the national landscape of state and federal prisons:
Note that the federal government didn’t even bother to track the size of private prisons until 1999 and that we calculated the size of the government-run prisons by subtracting the private prisons from the total. The data from 1987 to 2001 was collected and published by an academic in Florida with a uniquely close relationship with the industry. Due to different methodologies, the data aren’t entirely compatible but together they show the birth and initial growth of the industry follows rather than leads the prison boom. The industry’s long plateau in the last decade makes it clear that the private prison industry has largely been locked out of sizable growth.
Now, of course, the influence of private prisons will vary from state to state and they have in fact lobbied to keep mass incarceration going; but far more influential are political benefits that elected officials of both political parties harvested over the decades by being tough on crime as well as the billions of dollars earned by government-run prisons’ employees and private contractors and vendors.
The beneficiaries of public prison largess love it when private prisons get all of the attention. The more the public stays focused on the owners of private prisons, the less the public is questioning what would happen if the government nationalized the private prisons and ran every facility itself: Either way, we’d still have the largest prison system in the world.
But if private prisons aren’t at the root of mass incarceration, that doesn’t mean that private investors haven’t found ways to make our criminal justice system worse. The sins of the prison and jail telephone industry trying to charge families $1 a minute for simple telephone calls are well-documented. And the private bail industry keeps legislatures from passing sensible bail reforms that would allow poor, unconvicted people who pose no public safety threat to wait for their trial at home rather than in jail.
What I find most worrisome is the rush of private money to fuel the development of “alternatives” to incarceration like electronic monitoring or private probation services that ensnare people who previously would never have been under criminal justice system control. And worse, because many of these services are paid for by the person being monitored, they remove any fiscal barriers to large-scale unnecessary use.
For more than a decade, families have been calling on the Federal Communications Commission to provide relief from the exploitative prison and jail telephone industry that charges rates as high as $1/minute. We are excited to share that phone justice is now closer than ever.
Yesterday, FCC Chairman Wheeler and Commissioner Clyburn released a summary of their proposal for comprehensive regulation of the broken prison and jail telephone industry. The Federal Communications Commission will be voting on the proposal at their October 22 meeting.
The new proposal:
Applies to all calls be they local, intra-state, or inter-state. (Previous regulations only applied to inter-state calls.)
Lowers the maximum rate that can be charged to 11 cents a minute for state prisons, and 14 to 22 cents a minute for jails, depending on the size of the jail. (Most incarcerated people are in prisons and most people in jails are in the larger facilities that will have the lower rates.)
Payment by phone or website: $3 (currently up to $10)
Payment via live operator: $5.95 (currently up to $10)
Paper bills: $2 (currently up to $3.49)
Markups and hidden fees embedded within WesternUnion and MoneyGram payments: $0 (currently up to $6.95)
Markups and hidden profits on mandatory taxes and regulatory fees: $0 (We’ve seen these markups and hidden profits on “mandatory” taxes be 25% of the cost of the call)
All other ancillary fees: $0. (There are many of these charges. Some of the most egregious ones are $10 fees for refunds, $2.50/month for “network infrastructure” and a 4% charge for “validation”.)
The proposal also:
Discourages but does not directly ban commissions (kickbacks of vendor profits to the correctional facilities).
Bans flat-rate calling. (Currently some vendors insist on charging a fixed-price for calls of any length, so that a person who only needs a 1 minute conversation must still pay for a 15 minute call.)
Takes effect very quickly; the new regulations will likely be effective by early 2016. (90 days after they are published in the Federal Register.)
Now that the FCC is finally prioritizing the families of incarcerated people, we need to keep the pressure on and make sure their final order reflects the strong protections provided in this proposal. No family should have to choose between putting food on the table and keeping in touch.
We are excited to share another victory in the struggle to protect traditional in-person visits from the exploitative video visitation industry. Yesterday, thanks to the hard work of families of incarcerated people, Grassroots Leadership, and other allies, Travis County, Texas legislators voted to bring back in-person visits that were completely eliminated from Austin jails in 2013.
Through an open records request, we collected the video visitation usage data of Travis County, Texas from September 2013 to September 2014, finding that when Securus and the county charged the typical rate of $1 per minute, families barely used remote video visits. When promotional rates were offered, usage went up. But overall video visitation remained unpopular even when offered at approximately $0.20 per minute.
Our research found that Texas is one of the states with the greatest use of video visitation in the country, but fortunately families and advocates have been quick to stand up for the right of families to keep in touch and support their incarcerated loved ones. Last fall, thanks to community pressure, Dallas County, Texas rejected a Securus video visitation contract that would have required the elimination of in-person visits. And just last month a statewide law went into effect that protects in-person family visits by clarifying that the Texas Commission on Jail Standard’s requirement of at least two visits per week refers to in-person visits, not computer chats.
While the Texas law is a major step forward in rejecting the use of video as a replacement to in-person visits, more than 30 counties have applied to be exempted. We hope that these counties will follow in the footsteps of Travis County and listen to families who have long been saying video chats are simply not the same as in-person visits.
Tomorrow, I’ll be speaking by telephone to the Iowa Governor’s Working Group on Justice Policy Reform about how the state can bring down the the cost of calling home from prisons and jails. The Working Group was announced at the Iowa Summit on Justice & Disparities, organized by the Iowa and Nebraska NAACP where I gave the keynote address.
I thought my notes about what the executive and legislative branches in state governments can do might be useful to advocates in other states, especially while we wait for the Federal Communications Commission to issue their next ruling.
Executive Branch:
Renegotiate the state’s contract with the phone vendor. At a minimum, you should be able to waive your commission and have the vendor reduce the prices proportionally. However, advances in technology (namely cheaper bandwidth) and the industry’s growing understanding that states are becoming more adept at recognizing how some vendors shortchange consumers (such as the costly ancillary fees) may give you even greater leverage. (Note: My understanding is that Iowa controls its phone system more than in most states. Iowa could abandon its goal of turning a profit on the phone system and instantly reduce the rates charged to families of people in state prison.)
Determine if inappropriate or excessive fees are being charged for telephone calls or related accounts. If so, seek redress from the state’s vendor. These can include excessive credit card fees, or fees for retrieving unspent account balances. For a roadmap to this investigation, see http://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/pleasedeposit.html.
Order the State Treasurer to investigate whether phone companies active in the state are turning over unclaimed customer funds as required by state law. If no, seek redress. For a roadmap to this kind of investigation, see http://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/letters_with_exhibits.html#unclaimed.
Legislative branch:
Require the state and its counties to negotiate for phone calls and video visitation services for people in their custody on the basis of the lowest cost to the consumer.
The strongest legislation:
Applies to the state correctional system and any facilities operated by counties. (New York’s statute is extremely strong, but it does not apply to counties. The regulations in both Alabama and New Mexico are notable for applying to both the state prisons and the county jails. New Jersey‘s approach is interesting as the state negotiated to allow counties to opt-in to the state’s low-cost contract.)
Prohibits commissions and other forms of profit sharing between vendors and the facilities including percentage payments, up-front signing bonuses, inflated “rent payments” or supplying technologies unrelated to the actual telephone service. For more examples of illicit profit sharing, see our August 1, 2013 letter to the FCC.
Takes effect immediately and applies to existing contracts. (Bill drafters should be aware that vendors may rush to sign long-term contracts before the law’s effective date.)
Requires the disclosure of all ancillary fees in the contracts and seeks to minimize these fees, which have historically doubled the price of a call but do not produce commissionable revenue.
Prohibits the vendor from engaging in revenue sharing with third party payment processing and money transfer service providers.
Ensures that customers’ leftover account balances be turned over to the state unclaimed funds program, as required by state law.
Prohibits vendors from charging “single call fees” to people who do not have accounts with that vendor. These fees should be banned outright, but can also be replaced with a reasonable maximum credit card charge and a maximum call charge — as done by Alabama, where a non-account single call is now capped at $6; considerably less than the $14.99 that some of these vendors previously charged.
Addresses video visitation services — the industry may use video visitation to circumvent regulation of phone services. Legislation should prohibit the state or any county from replacing traditional in-person visitation with video visitation. (Many jails nationwide are experimenting with video visitation. There is no charge to use the technology at the jail; but it is inferior to traditional contact or in-person visitation, and it is designed to drive consumers to use expensive video visitation from their homes. The typical rate is $20 for a 20-minute remote visit.)
Ensures strong enforcement capability by clarifying the enforcing agency’s jurisdiction in the arena of inmate calling services. And explicitly confirms or strengthens the regulatory authority (perhaps the Iowa Utilities Board or other relevant agency) in this area to ensure that the legislation’s goal of reasonable phone costs remains intact as companies evolve their products to exploit any loopholes in the legislation.
“We all know that orange is the new black and mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow, but how much do we actually know about the structure, goals, and impact of our criminal justice system? Understanding Mass Incarceration offers the first comprehensive overview of the incarceration apparatus put in place by the world’s largest jailer: the United States.”
I was fortunate to be asked to review the book back in April and I provided this blurb:
“The movement for justice has been waiting for an accessible yet authoritative and extensively-researched guide to the systems of over-criminalization and mass incarceration. With this ambitious book, James Kilgore has delivered.”
Congratulations, James! Readers should order the book today, and while they are waiting for it to arrive, read James’ newest article on CounterPunch where he explains that at the current slow pace of reform, the polar icecaps will all be gone long before we end mass incarceration. And, as always, James’ article explains what conversations we as activists need to be having to keep the movement against mass incarceration moving.
We just released our 2014-2015 Prison Policy Initiative Annual Report, and I’m thrilled to share some highlights of our work. We had another great year of leading innovative campaigns while also strengthening the movement with long-absent data and resources.
Part of what makes the Prison Policy Initiative unique is that we can identify the data gaps that are stalling the movement against mass incarceration, and we have the creativity to answer the questions that are commonly considered unanswerable. For example, a few months ago, we released, Prisons of Poverty, which made use of a government dataset hiding in plain sight: we updated decades-old pre-incarceration incomes for men in prison and published this data for women for the very first time.
We did all of this while continuing to achieve real change on our focused campaigns:
The Massachusetts legislature sent a bipartisan resolution to the Census Bureau calling on the federal government to stop counting incarcerated people in the wrong place, and we won a preliminary victory in our federal voting rights lawsuit challenging prison gerrymandering in Cranston, Rhode Island.
In January, we provided the Federal Communications Commission with six major research briefings, supporting its efforts to bring fairness to all calls home from prisons and jails. We are expecting a ruling next month.
We launched the national movement to protect family visits from the exploitative video visitation industry and have already won victories protecting in-person family visits in Dallas County, Texas and Portland, Oregon.
Armed with our research, Connecticut removed the harsh mandatory minimum sentences from the state’s 1,500-feet drug sentencing enhancement zones.
And as our work has diversified, so has our funding. We’ve brought in new foundation partners, and our individual donors have increased in both number and generosity. If you are able to join our donors in making a tax-deductible investment in our work, your support will now go twice as far thanks to a generous match.
Thank you for your partnership! Please celebrate with me.
In case you missed it, Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver took on the problems caused by under-funding of the public defender system that defend people accused of crimes but are too poor to hire their own attorneys. This basic constitutional right is being undermined.
(As usual, for this late night HBO show, there is some strong language):
Note that the federal government didn’t even bother to track the size of private prisons until 1999 and that we calculated the size of the government-run prisons by subtracting the private prisons from the total. The data from 1987 to 2001 was collected and published by an academic in Florida with a 
Through an open records request, we collected the video visitation usage data of Travis County, Texas from September 2013 to September 2014, finding that when Securus and the county charged the typical rate of $1 per minute, families barely used remote video visits. When promotional rates were offered, usage went up. But overall video visitation remained unpopular even when offered at approximately $0.20 per minute.
