{"id":8388,"date":"2019-02-11T09:01:31","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T14:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=8388"},"modified":"2020-05-29T10:25:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T14:25:33","slug":"phone-justice-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/11\/phone-justice-report\/","title":{"rendered":"New report uncovers the cost of phone calls in over 2,000 locally-run jails across the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>County and city jails frequently charge incarcerated people $1\/minute or more for a phone call, far more than even the worst rates in state prisons, a new 50-state report finds. The Prison Policy Initiative report <i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/state_of_phone_justice.html\">State of Phone Justice<\/a><\/i> uncovers the cost of phone calls in over 2,000 jails nationwide, explaining why sheriffs sign lucrative phone contracts that prey on pretrial detainees.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Jails have managed to escape the political pressure that forced many prisons to bring their rates down,&#8221; said co-author Peter Wagner. &#8220;We found that many jails are charging three, five or even 50 times as much as their state&#8217;s prisons would charge for the same phone call.&#8221; The report explains how:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list\">\n<li>Phone providers compete for jail contracts by offering sheriffs large portions of the revenue &#8211; and then charge exorbitant phone rates.<\/li>\n<li>Providers exploit sheriffs&#8217; lack of experience with telecommunications contracts to slip in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/state_of_phone_justice.html#hiddenfees\">hidden fees<\/a> that fleece consumers.<\/li>\n<li>State legislators, regulators and governors pay little attention to jails, even as they continue to lower the cost of calls home from state prisons.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/state_of_phone_justice.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.prisonpolicy.org\/images\/jail_rates_2018_highest.png\" alt=\"U.S. map showing the highest jail phone rates in every state\" width=\"512\" height=\"380\"\/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;High phone rates impact everyone in jail, but those worst affected are people detained pretrial because they cannot afford bail,&#8221; co-author Alexi Jones said. &#8220;When someone has to organize their defense from jail, the cost of phone calls <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/05\/jail-phone-calls\/\">becomes extremely limiting<\/a>, and that ultimately makes our justice system less fair.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The report also includes:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/appendix_table_2.html\">A sortable table<\/a> of the cost of phone calls in jails nationwide, as well as the provider each jail contracts with;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/state_of_phone_justice.html#disparity_table_excerpt\">A table<\/a> comparing the cost of prison phone calls in each state to the cost of jail phone calls;<\/li>\n<li>Explanations of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/state_of_phone_justice.html#hiddenfees\">two specific profit-making tricks<\/a> used by jail phone providers, which target the very poorest consumers at their moments of crisis (with explanatory comics by illustrator Kevin Pyle);<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/phones\/state_of_phone_justice.html#consolidation\">A timeline<\/a> showing how the two largest phone providers, Securus and GTL, are locking facilities into perpetual contracts by buying up their competitors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;If we&#8217;re going to tame the correctional phone market, we need sheriffs, state legislators, public utilities commissions and federal regulators to understand the significance of jail phone calls,&#8221; Wagner said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The movement for phone justice has won huge victories in state-run prisons, but people in jail pretrial are on the front lines of exploitation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[46],"class_list":["post-8388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8388","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8388"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10047,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8388\/revisions\/10047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8388"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}