Alabama should implement proposed prison phone reform

PPI submits letter to Alabama Public Service Commission supporting proposed regulations to reign in exorbitant costs jails and prison phone calls.

by Aleks Kajstura, November 14, 2013

The Alabama Public Service Commission is still seeking comments on a recent order proposing to cap all prison and jail call rates and place strict limits on fees and other charges (summarized here).

Yesterday, we submitted the following letter in support of the Commission’s proposed regulations:

November 13, 2013

Walter L. Thomas, Jr., Secretary
Alabama Public Service Commission
P.O. Box 304260
Montgomery, AL 36130

Dear Commissioners:

We are writing in support of your Order Proposing Revised Inmate Phone Service Rules (Oct. 7, 2013, Docket 15957).[1] As the Executive Director and Legal Director of the Prison Policy Initiative, we have investigated the high cost of calls from correctional facilities and would first like to thank you for addressing the issue of fees in your proposal.

We believe that regulating fees is an integral part of comprehensive regulation of prison and jail phone companies, and we commend Alabama for being the first state to, in our knowledge, directly address this major but hidden part of the industry.

Our research found that fees make up 38% of the $1 billion customers spend on prison and jail phone calls each year.[2] Your action to address fees is essential because simply capping rates would, as our report argues, be ineffective at protecting consumers if the industry was still free to continue to create additional fees out of thin air.

We agree with your conclusion that commissions paid to correctional facilities are ultimately to blame for both the high rates and fees charged by prison and jail phone companies. For that reason, the Prison Policy Initiative supports the proposed rules that would reign in both the exorbitant rates and fees now charged to Alabama consumers.

Sincerely,

Peter Wagner, Executive Director
Aleks Kajstura, Legal Director

[1]Our legal director, Aleks Kajstura, reviewed your proposal in light of our own findings on the high costs of prison and jail phone calls in “Alabama seeks to curb high cost of prison and jail phone calls” available at http://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2013/10/09/alabama-proposes/.

[2] Please Deposit All of Your Money: Kickbacks, Rates, and Hidden Fees in the Jail Phone Industry, by Drew Kukorowski, Peter Wagner, and Leah Sakala (May 8, 2013), available at http://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/pleasedeposit.html and attached.

The deadline for submitting comments is December 6, 2013.

FCC prison phone regulation ruling published in Federal Register, to take effect Feb 11.

Companies and correctional facilities can no longer collude to profit off of keeping families apart.

by Peter Wagner, November 13, 2013

The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) historic order reining in the exploitative prison and jail telephone industry has finally been published in the Federal Register, making it official. (The footnoted version of the order is still available on the FCC’s website.) Starting February 11, a single call home from prison or jail will no longer cost a family as much as $17 and new rules will improve how this market operates. The FCC Commissioners are also requesting public comments, due December 13, on a series of questions related to expanding the scope and operation of their order.

Here’s a breakdown of the details of the FCC’s order:

Prison phone company to expand most costly service?

Prison phone company that recently raised their exorbitant fees even higher, recently took steps to bolster their still unregulated single call program.

by Aleks Kajstura, November 8, 2013

Securus, the same prison phone company that recently raised their exorbitant fees even higher, recently took steps [“Securus Technologies Buys ‘America’s Most Promising Company'”] to bolster their still-unregulated “single call” program.

Our report found that the phone companies set up these $10-15 “single call” programs to extract additional income from desperate consumers. Before the call can be connected, the recipient must first agree to either have a $9.99 to $14.99 “premium message” charged to their cellphone, or to pay that amount by credit or debit card. These “single call programs” are currently unregulated and far more profitable for the phone companies than the prepaid systems: Securus’ $14.99 charge is $1.80 for the call and a $13.19 “processing fee”.

Securus seems to be committed to this profit mechanism, recently acquiring 3Cinteractive, a “mobile platform company”, having already previously secured 3Cinteractive’s patents for collect calls to cell phones.

But luckily for folks who live in Alabama, the Alabama Public Service Commission is keeping an eye out for $13 processing fees. The Commission recently concluded: “As more calls are completed using ‘text-to-collect’ and ‘pay now’, the average price for inmate calling will trend upward regardless of regulatory caps established for ICS usage rates and authorized fees.” And the Commission’s proposal to bring these calls under the same rate and fee caps as other prepaid and collect calls would create the country’s first regulation of this profit mechanism.

The Alabama Public Service Commission is still seeking comments on their proposed ICS reform, so we’ll keep you posted.

Massachusetts Department of Corrections moves forward with dog sniff plan

As soon as we learned of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections's plan to use dogs to screen people entering prisons starting this week, we wrote them another letter.

by Leah Sakala, November 7, 2013

If you visit a Massachusetts prison this week, you may be subjected to a dog sniff search.

As soon as we learned of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections’s plan to use dogs to screen people entering prisons — including friends and families visiting their loved ones — starting this week, we wrote them another letter.

We reminded the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections that the research clearly shows that helping incarcerated people maintain close relationships with their families and communities increases the chances that they will succeed after they are released. Using dogs to screen visitors not only adds an additional humilitating experience for visiting family, but it is also out of step with the vast majority of correctional security systems in the country.

If you want to weigh in on this issue as well, make your voice heard by contacting the Department of Corrections, Executive Office of Public Safety, and the Office of the Governor.

Michigan ACLU uses our map, testifies against harmful loitering bill

We produced a map to illustrate the ACLU’s testimony against a counterproductive zone law.

by Peter Wagner, October 17, 2013

The Michigan ACLU testified yesterday against a bill proposing counterproductive and ineffective restrictions on where people on the sex offender registry would be allowed to “loiter”. This bill would expand the current restrictions to also include all areas within 1,000 feet of a day care center, creating “a nearly impossible burden on listed offenders and on law enforcement.” Here at the Prison Policy Initiative, we produced a map to illustrate the ACLU’s testimony by demonstrating that the simple-sounding law would blanket dense urban areas with a confusing pattern of imperceptible zones.

Our map showing that most of the Michigan capital city of Lansing is within 1,000 feet of just two dozen of the 10,729 day care centers in the state.

We’ve also prepared similar analysis for court cases in Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts and elsewhere. This work grew out of our research on sentencing enhancement zones, the drug laws that give enhanced penalties based on where an offense occurs, not on its dangerousness. These laws are all too common, and the basic differences are the number of protected places, the distances involved, and how that distance is to be measured.

In all the cases we’ve looked at, a few key points about geography and geometry keep coming back:

• Drawing large circles around thousands of places blankets entire cities in “protected” or “off-limits” areas.
• Doubling the distance in one of these statutes makes the protected area four times as large (remember pi r squared?).
• 1,000 feet — and most distances, for that matter — are actually much further than most people assume.
• Laws that measure the distance as the crow flies extend coverage to areas that are, for all practical purposes, very far away.
• Laws that measure the distance on a property line-to-property line basis cover considerably more area than simple 1,000 foot circles drawn around the center point of a particular property.

Most importantly, however, the laws that fail to work as intended share the same fundamental flaw of covering too much area. This might sound like it would produce more safety but it actually produces less for the simple reason that when you make everywhere special, nowhere is special.

Alabama seeks to curb high cost of prison and jail phone calls

Alabama Public Service Commission caps phone rates and limits fees charged for phone calls from correctional facilities.

by Aleks Kajstura, October 9, 2013

In a sweeping proposal to rein in the exorbitant costs of calls to people in jails and prisons, the Alabama Public Service Commission seeks to cap all call rates and place strict limits on fees and other charges. We are particularly happy to see this comprehensive proposal addresses fees because, as we explain in our recent report, we found that fees account for 38% of the money spent on calls from correctional facilities.

The proposed rules seek to cap calls at $0.25 per minute, and video visitation at $0.50 per minute, noting that “[a]ffordable VVS [Video Visitation Service] rates are in the best interests of Alabama inmates, their families, and the confinement facilities.” (Video visitation still accounts for only a small part of communication with family members in jail and prison, but this cap is an important component of regulation because video visitation is a quickly growing service.)

We have previously identified commissions paid to correctional facilities as a major factor in the exorbitant rates charged for phone calls in jails and prisons, and the proposed rules similarly blame commissions for the high rates and fees charged by ICS (Inmate Calling Services) companies. The Commission found that “[e]ither ICS providers are operating at a loss, or are generating revenue by means other than inmate calls, or are shielding some portion of ICS revenue from commissions.” Furthermore, the commission found that “unnecessary or excessive ICS provider fees decreases the amount [of funds] devoted for inmate calls and reduces commissionable revenue.” To put it simply, high fees hurt incarcerated people as well as jails.

Mass. court to decide when sentencing enhancement zone reform takes effect

Leah reports back from a hearing on the zone law before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

by Leah Sakala, October 8, 2013

The Massachusetts Legislature took a step in the right direction last year when it reformed the state’s sentencing enhancement zone law. But now the highest court in Massachusetts must decide just when the new law began to take effect.

Basically, lots of states have sentencing enhancement zone laws that aim to keep illegal drug activity away from kids by saying that if you commit drug offenses within a certain distance of a place like a school, you get a mandatory extra sentence for your crime. But until last August, the Massachusetts law created enormous 1,000-foot zones that blanketed entire urban areas. Our two reports found that huge zones end up defeating the whole purpose of the law because when you make everywhere special, nowhere is special. Furthermore, the law increases racial disparities in the justice system because dense, urban communities that are disproportionately made up of people of color are most impacted by zone laws.

Last August, the Massachusetts legislature realized that the 1,000-foot zones weren’t doing the job, and were actually causing harm. So lawmakers took our advice to reduce the size of the zones, reining them in to a more reasonable 300 feet.

Yesterday I attended a hearing in Boston before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to consider which version of the law should apply to people who were arrested before last year’s law change, but sentenced afterwards. Since this case is largely revolves around a procedural question, much of the hearing was spent talking about the technicalities of the legislation.

For me, the most memorable moment was when the District Attorney raised a concern that applying the law retroactively could create a disparity between people who had their court dates before the law was changed, and everyone else. Without skipping a beat, Justice Gants responded by pointing out that the legislature changed the law precisely because the old policy created disparities by giving prosecutors incredible power to bring an extra sentencing charge against people who primarily come from urban communities of color.

At the end of the day, as FAMM’s Barbara Dougan argued in her Amicus Brief, it’s clear that last year’s reform to shrink the size of the zones was intended to immediately improve a major flaw in the 1,000-foot law. Sentencing people to extra prison time based on a law that the legislature has since rejected is clearly not a good policy.

We’ll be following the outcome of this case closely, so stay tuned for updates and a ruling. Also, keep your eyes peeled for our newest video on sentencing enhancement zones. We’re hoping to wrap it up this week!

Think U.S. indefinite detention just happens in Guantanamo? Think again.

Disturbing laws that allow state and federal governments to keep certain people convicted of sex offenses behind bars indefinitely.

by Peter Wagner, October 2, 2013

Our friend and colleague James Ridgeway has released a must-read expose on disturbing laws that allow state and federal governments to keep certain people convicted of sex offenses behind bars indefinitely:

Through a legal procedure called “civil commitment”, you can be classed as a sexually violent predator based solely on the subjective opinion of a state-employed psychologist or sex expert.

Once placed under a civil commitment, you are essentially in prison indefinitely. This can quickly become a nightmare, particularly in instances such as an “agreed disposition” – similar to a plea bargain in a criminal trial – where a person may have been pushed to waive his right to appeal during negotiations.

The article concludes:

While there are, undoubtedly, some irremediable sex offenders who need to be confined for reasons of public safety, the civil commitment protocol denies some of the basic rights afforded other criminal defendants. These include the right to a speedy trial, full right to counsel and, perhaps most importantly, the right to introduce testimony from a defendant’s own experts. Without the protection of this last right, some defendants are sent off to prison for an indefinite sentence on the basis of questionable opinions from the state’s expert witnesses.

Civil commitment for sex offenders needs to be reformed root-and-branch or abandoned. The policy may be popular in law enforcement circles, fewer than half of US states have such laws. But in those states that have it […] most do not escape this largely invisible American gulag.

PPI’s work featured in “42 Amazing Maps”

Our map showing which countries allowed the execution of juveniles as recently as 2002 was just featured in a great new Vlogbrothers video.

by Leah Sakala, September 23, 2013

We’re excited to share that our map showing which countries allowed juveniles to be executed as recently as 2002 was just featured in a great new Vlogbrothers video, “42 Amazing Maps” (watch closely at about 1:55):

Juvenile-In-Justice blog features the Prison Policy Initiative

Check out the interview with us about our work to expose how mass incarceration harms families, communities, and our nation.

by Leah Sakala, September 10, 2013

Yesterday our friends at Juvenile-In-Justice featured the Prison Policy Initiative on their blog, posting an interview with us about our work to end prison gerrymandering, and our projects to preserve family communication in prisons and jails via telephone and letter. Check it out!