{"id":822,"date":"2013-08-09T10:44:02","date_gmt":"2013-08-09T14:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=822"},"modified":"2024-08-14T09:02:58","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T13:02:58","slug":"good-old-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/09\/good-old-days\/","title":{"rendered":"The good old days of the exploitative prison phone industry?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> The <a href=\"http:\/\/nationinside.org\/campaign\/prison-phone-justice\/\">campaign for phone justice<\/a> just posted a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QRmRQptXSRk&#038;feature=player_embedded\">2002 video<\/a> of prison phone providers talking about the industry:<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"590\" height=\"443\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QRmRQptXSRk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Talk about a blast from the past. The video is a perfect example of how much the industry has changed in the last decade. Here&#8217;s why:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The video features representatives of Verizon and AT&#038;T, public-facing companies you&#8217;ve actually heard of. Neither of these companies in the prison phone business anymore after investment banks took over the industry, and now Verizon <a href=\"\/\/static.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/filings\/7022134584.pdf\">publicly deplores<\/a> the price-gouging in the current prison phone market.<\/li>\n<li>The video features leading prison phone companies actually engaging with the media. By contrast, coverage of today&#8217;s upcoming <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-prison-phones-20130808,0,4232243.story\">FCC vote on prison phone regulation<\/a> has been rife with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/videos\/news\/2013\/08\/08\/2633439\/\">sentences such as<\/a>: &#8220;American Securities, which owns Global Tel*Link, declined to comment.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The spokespeople in the video acknowledge that it&#8217;s not a fair industry to the families of incarcerated people: the corporate bottom line depends on prisons staying full and families footing the expensive phone bills. &#8220;Unfortunately, this is a growth industry,&#8221; says the Verizon representative at the start of the video, noting that prison expansion is expanding their customer base.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>But now? The nation&#8217;s largest prison phone company, Global Tel*Link (which most people have probably never heard of), has been conspicuously silent. Not only are Global Tel*Link representatives not responsive to the public and to the media, but they&#8217;re also not talking to the Federal Communications Commission, refusing to participate in discussions about regulation or provide data the FCC is requesting.<\/p>\n<p>Calls home from prisons and jails were outrageously expansive when the video was shot, and they&#8217;re outrageously expensive now. That alone is reason enough for the FCC to approve comprehensive regulation this morning. But the extreme price gouging combined with a shocking lack of transparency from prison phone corporations should leave no question in the Commissioners&#8217; minds: It&#8217;s time to get this broken industry under control.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fcc.gov\/live\">Tune in at 11AM<\/a> EST to watch the historic vote and see what happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2002 footage shows how much the industry has changed in 10 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[13],"class_list":["post-822","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\/822","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16361,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions\/16361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}