Many honor Johnny Cash's contribution ton country music, but few know of his passionate advocacy for incarcerated people.
by Peter Wagner,
September 12, 2013
Johnny Cash shaking hands with Glen Sherley during Cash’s performance at Folsom Prison, 1968 (photo by Jim Marshall).
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Johnny Cash at the age of 71. The country music star was famous for his At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin live albums, and his hit Folsom Prison Blues
What is less known is how deep Johnny Cash’s activism went. Earlier this year, the BBC Magazine wrote a great article to accompany a two part radio documentary about Cash’s work and effectiveness:
Cash’s classic albums recorded at Folsom Prison and San Quentin are well known, but few are aware that these were just two of many prison concerts he played over three decades.
Cash’s experiences in these jails turned him into a passionate prison reformer who donated his own money to the cause, took a released prisoner into his own home and even met President Richard Nixon to force the issue.
Johnny Cash never served time in prison himself, but he struggled with his own demons, and the Man in Black identified with:
…the poor and the beaten down,
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
…the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he’s a victim of the times.
Johnny Cash deserves a lot of credit for putting the issue of prison reform on the minds and radio waves of a generation, and for setting out a shining example of how our cultural leaders can help make social change.
Since Cash’s death, I discovered an even rarer and more important song that I think illustrates the depth of Cash’s passion and vision for prison reform: Jacob Green. The song was first performed at a Swedish prison and released on the 1974 LP “Pa Osteraker” (Inside a Swedish Prison), and then on the recording of a 1976 concert at the Tennessee State Prison, A Concert Behind Prison Walls visible on YouTube:
Note: After this blog was published, the video referenced was removed from YouTube.
As I wrote 10 years ago in a short homage to both Johnny Cash and his song San Quentin: “We’ll miss you Johnny. May all the world never forget you sang. All the world will rejoice you did so much good.”
The Huffington Post just published the first article we’ve seen on the prison phone regulation that includes a public interview with the CEO of Securus.
by Leah Sakala,
September 10, 2013
The Huffington Post just published the first article we’ve seen on prison phone market regulation that includes a public interview with Richard Smith, the CEO of Securus, which is the second-largest corporation in the prison telephone industry.
In the year we’ve spent doing detailed analyses of this industry’s shenanigans, we can’t help having gotten a little jaded. But the industry keeps on shocking us with new lows. Here’s a teaser from the article.
First, Mr. Smith likens corporate phone companies to selfless public servants:
It’s almost like throwing firemen and policemen under the bus, it just isn’t fair.
He then turns right around and admits that the corporate bottom line is his top priority:
It isn’t an altruistic business. It’s a business for profit.
The article also cites our work, pointing out that in the few weeks since the FCC has voted to regulate the prison phone industry Securus has actually raised its deposit fees even higher. Now, instead of costing $7.95 to make a deposit over the phone, Securus charges $9.95.
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!
A harmful new trend is sweeping through local jails as a growing number of sheriffs are banning letters from home.
by Leah Sakala,
September 9, 2013
Our new video reveals that a harmful new trend is sweeping through local jails as a growing number of sheriffs ban letters from home:
Want to learn more about this disturbing trend? Check out our page on jail letter bans.
While the FCC drags its feet on regulating the prison phone industry, the industry is wasting no time raking in the profits.
by Peter Wagner,
September 5, 2013
While the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) drags its feet on regulating the prison phone industry, an industry leader is wasting no time raking in the profits. Just this week, Securus, the second largest company in the prison phone industry, has quietly raised some of its fees.
In our report, Please Deposit All of Your Money: Kickbacks, Rates, and Hidden Fees in the Jail Phone Industry, we wrote that the companies’ hidden fees can double the price of a call. Unlike the regular phone industry, these companies want their money upfront, and they charge additional fees to take, hold, and refund families’ money.
Securus, for example, didn’t think it was enough to charge a family $7.95 to accept a deposit via the web or over the telephone. Now, the company charges $9.95 to deposit money with a credit card over the phone. The company charges this same higher rate regardless of whether you speak to a customer service agent or use the automated system. (By contrast, I can’t think of a business that I use regularly that charges me a fee to take my money. Generally, companies absorb those costs because they want my business. Because this industry has its customers locked in (pun intended), they don’t have to worry as much about competition. But Securus is clearly out of line compared to its competitors. The prison phone company PayTel, which has none of Securus’ economies of scale, charges $3.00 for an automated payment and $5.95 for payments made via a live operator.)
Securus has another, hidden profit-boost as well. Buried in its long list of questionable monthly charges is an increase in one: Securus is keeping the bill processing charge ($1.49/month), Billing Statement Fee ($3.49/month), Federal Regulatory Recovery Fee ($3.49/month), USF Administrative Fee ($1.00/month) and increasing the “Wireless Administration Fee” from $2.99/month to $3.99 a month.
Food for thought: Is Securus raising its fees because it wants to raise every dollar it can now, before the FCC rules take effect, or does this have to do with the recent sale of the company from one investment bank (Castle Harlan) to another (ABRY Partners)? I note that competitor NCIC, which isn’t owned by an investment bank, lowered some fees after our report brought public attention to fees.
Bonus question: Are any sheriffs out there aware that these fees are not commissionable and that their partner Securus just increased its corporate profits at local taxpayers’ expense?
Extra bonus question: Is the FCC aware of what the industry is doing while we wait for the publication of the order to regulate the industry?
Sources:
The article includes a nice summary of Peter's invited presentation on a panel about the true costs of providing prison phone service.
by Leah Sakala,
August 29, 2013
David Ganim of Prison Legal News wrote a great piece about last month’s FCC workshop on prison phone call charges (beginning on page 26).
The article includes a nice summary of Peter’s invited presentation on a panel about the true costs of providing prison phone service:
Peter Wagner, an attorney and executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative, who was the last panel speaker at the FCC workshop, rebutted several of the arguments made by prison phone companies and their supporters. He further addressed the issue of extra fees charged by prison phone service providers – such as fees to fund pre-paid phone accounts as well as account closure, inactivity and refund fees.
Wagner noted that 12 million people pass through the U.S. jail system annually and that the extra fees associated with prisoner calls are a means for prison phone companies to generate revenue outside the commission system, since commissions aren’t paid on fees. He said that small prison phone providers have smaller fees but that the larger companies, including Global Tel*Link and Securus, have some of the highest fees in the industry. Wagner concluded by stating the extra fees demonstrated that the prison phone industry, which he termed a “dark, neglected corner of the telecommunications industry,” is unable to regulate itself – and that to be effective, reforms must address the problem of such fees.
For more great reporting from Prison Legal News, subscribe online, like them on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
Ending the letter ban would help keep Santa Barbara's community safe and families intact.
by Leah Sakala,
August 28, 2013
A new Santa Maria Times article reports that the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors are exploring a potential solution to the decades-old problem of overcrowding in the local jail. The county is considering studying the impact of allowing private investors to finance social service programs, with an eye towards reducing recidivism and therefore government expenditures.
While I certainly support the Supervisors’ creative long-term efforts to reduce recidivism, Santa Barbara County is missing a simple and more immediate opportunity to keep people from returning to jail: stop banning families from writing letters to incarcerated loved ones.
When Sheriff Brown started banning letters from home earlier this year, he apparently ignored the significant body of social science research that says that one of the most effective ways to help incarcerated people succeed when they return home is to allow them to preserve family ties. He also ignored the best practices on correspondence touted by major professional organizations such as the American Correctional association, the American Jail Association, and the American Bar Association, government bodies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and regulatory agencies such as the Texas Association on Jail Standards.
In March, when the Santa Barbara County letter ban was first announced, more than 50 national criminal justice and civil rights organizations submitted a letter to Sheriff Brown urging him to cancel the ban. But a child in Santa Barbara is still currently prohibited from writing a letter or sending a drawing to an incarcerated parent.
Working with Sheriff Brown to end the jail’s ban on letters from home is a simple and evidence-based step that the Board of Supervisors can take today to keep Santa Barbara’s community safe and families intact.
Peter Wagner was an expert witness in the case, finding that the ordinance essentially amounted to complete banishment from the city of Englewood.
by Peter Wagner,
August 23, 2013
The map that I prepared for the case (area in blue is off limits).
The ACLU of Colorado has announced that federal Judge R. Brooke Jackson has invalidated an Englewood, Colorado city ordinance that severely restricts where persons convicted of certain sex offenses can live, ruling that the ordinance violates the Colorado Constitution.
I was an expert witness in the case, and I found that the ordinance essentially amounted to complete banishment from the city of Englewood. Judge Jackson summarized my findings in his opinion:
During trial the City presented a map showing the parts of the City that are off limits under Ordinance 34 as well as a list of residence addresses that are located in parts of the City that are unrestricted. Exhibit 7. The result, according to the City, is that 209 addresses within the City are not restricted, of which 126 addresses are residential. However, according to Peter Wagner, plaintiff’s geographic information systems and mapping expert, the correct number of parcels available to sex offenders is 55 unrestricted parcels out of 11,314 parcels total in the City. Either way approximately 99% of the City is off-limits to most sex offenders.
The case was brought by the ACLU of Colorado and pro bono counsel from Faegre Baker Daniels LLP. For more on our other litigation efforts on prison gerrymandering and the issue of banishment of people on sex offender registries, see our litigation page.
A New York Times Magazine article exposes how the broken prison commissary industry leaves the people footing the bill out of the equation.
by Leah Sakala,
August 20, 2013
A fascinating “It’s the Economy” column by Adam Davidson in this week’s New York Times Magazine, ‘Orange’ Is the New Green, takes a good, hard look at some serious market failures in the U.S. prison system. Along the way, the article provides great first-hand reporting about how the prison commissary system works, and it explains the economic theory in a way that may be helpful to our allies working to bring justice to the prison and jail telephone industry.
(As a refresher on what’s wrong with the prison phone industry, state prison systems and local jails grant exclusive monopoly contracts to telephone corporations. In exchange, the corporations charge sky-high bills to the families of incarcerated people and kick back the lion’s share of the profit to the prisons and jails.)
In our reports, we explain that the prison and jail telephone industry is so broken because the customers, which is to say the people who are actually using the provided service and footing the bills, aren’t actually the customers in the eyes of the corporations.
The New York Times article makes it clear that the prison phone industry is unfortunately not unique in this regard. The prison commissary industry, too, operates in what Davidson calls a “third-party-decider economy.”
Davidson found that allowing prison systems to be the “third party” in these industry transactions actually means that the corporations that are less responsive to the needs of incarcerated people are more successful in the marketplace. As he explains:
How can that possibly be? Because the people choosing the company aren’t the ones using the products.
This immediately looked familiar to us. In our most recent report, we found that some companies in the prison phone industry actually profit by providing bad service, such as forcing customers through convoluted refund processes or dropping calls.
But to add to Davidson’s argument, it’s important to remember that the people choosing the companies are also not the ones paying for the products or service, which is how you end up with the families of incarcerated people paying an outrageous $17 for a single 15-minute phone call from a loved one. From a corporation’s perspective, the literally captive market in prisons and jails is a boon for the bottom line.
Fortunately it looks like some relief for families is in sight, at least in the prison phone industry. The FCC has voted to rein in charges for the most expensive interstate calls, and may take more action in the future. But there’s lots more work to be done. The uniquely American project of mass incarceration has created many markets rife with perverse economic incentives to line the pockets of prison systems and corporations by dunning poor families. And corporations are not about to pass that up.
the FCC is finally stepping up to the plate to protect families from having to choose between staying in touch and paying the bills.
by Leah Sakala,
August 9, 2013
This afternoon the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve a new set of regulations to control the exploitative prison and jail phone industry. Currently, prisons and jails grant exclusive contracts to telephone companies that charge families outrageous bills and kick back a hefty portion of the profit to the correctional facilities. But now, the FCC is finally stepping up to the plate to protect families from having to choose between staying in touch and paying the bills.
While the official text for the order and notice won’t be available until next week, today the FCC announced that the regulation will mandate:
- That “all interstate inmate calling rates, including ancillary charges, be based on the cost of providing the inmate calling service.”
- Interstate rate caps of $0.21/minute for debit and pre-paid calls and $0.25/minute for collect calls, and “safe-harbor” rates of $0.12/minute for debit and prepaid calls and $0.14 cents/minute for collect calls. The rates must also include the costs of security features and technology.
- The expense of kickbacks back to prisons and jails must not be factored into interstate rates or charges
- People who need assistive hearing or speech services not be charged higher rates
- A call for “mandatory data collection, annual certification requirement, and enforcement provisions to ensure compliance with this Order”
The FCC also opened a new comment period to gather information on two topics:
- Regulating in-state rates
- Encouraging competition to bring down rates
Advocates for fair phone rates have been calling for regulation for more than a decade, beginning with a 2000 class action lawsuit brought against the Corrections Corporation of America and several prison phone companies. A federal judge decided that the case fell under the jurisdiction of the FCC, where it sat for years. Today’s ruling marks the first definitive action from the FCC to control the broken prison and jail telephone industry.
This victory was the result of a strong and sustained campaign, and we are proud to be celebrating with our movement partners. Stay tuned for a more in-depth analysis next week when the details are available!
