{"id":4059,"date":"2015-12-28T11:56:47","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T15:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=4059"},"modified":"2015-12-28T11:56:47","modified_gmt":"2015-12-28T15:56:47","slug":"iowa-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/28\/iowa-governor\/","title":{"rendered":"Iowa Governor pledges to address cost of prison and jail phone calls"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nIn August, I gave the <a href=\"\/blog\/2015\/08\/31\/iowasummit\/\">keynote address<\/a> at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/iowanebraskaNAACP\">Iowa-Nebraska NAACP&#8217;s<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/iowajusticesummit.org\">Iowa Summit on Justice &amp; Disparities<\/a> and a major topic was the need for prison phone justice.  At that meeting, Governor Brandstad announced a Governor&#8217;s Working Group On Justice Policy to address several problems, including the need for phone justice.<\/p>\n<p>In September, I testified by phone to the Working Group about <a href=\"\/blog\/2015\/09\/29\/state-reform-phones\/\">steps Iowa could take<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In November, Governor Brandstad announced the Working Group&#8217;s recommendations (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.legis.iowa.gov\/docs\/publications\/BL\/705341.pdf\">summary<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/comment.iowa.gov\/Notice\/Details\/JusticePolicyReform\">details<\/a>  ) which he wanted introduced in the next legislative session. The proposed phone reforms include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> Renegotiate contracts with the Iowa Communications Network and seek bids from other vendors with the goal of reducing rates paid by prison inmates and their families.\n<\/li>\n<li>Transition to a per minute calculation for call costs rather than a flat fee.<\/li>\n<li>Enable and encourage counties to partner with one another or the Department of Corrections to negotiate more favorable rates with phone vendors. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Iowa Governor&#8217;s Working Group On Justice Policy takes up our recommendations on phone justice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[11],"class_list":["post-4059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phones","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4059"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}