FCC Finally Stops Prison Telecom Monopolies From Ripping Off Inmates And Their Families

The FCC has announced that it’s taking more direct aim at prison phone and videoconferencing monopolies that have a long history of ripping off inmates and their families.

According to an agency announcement, the FCC has voted to further lower price caps on prison phone calls and closed a loophole allowing companies to charge exorbitant rates for intrastate calls. 

“Under the new rules, the cost of a 15-minute phone call will drop to $0.90 from as much
as $11.35 in large jails and, in small jails, to $1.35 from $12.10,” the FCC said.

The agency said the new rules will also cut the cost of video visitation calls to less than a
quarter of current prices, while requiring per-minute rate options based on consumers’ actual usage. The new rules will take effect in January of 2025 for prisons with more than 1,000 inmates, and in all smaller jails starting in April of 2025.

However terrible telecom monopolies are in the free world, they’re arguably worse in prisons. For decades, journalists and researchers have outlined how a select number of prison telecom giants like Securus have enjoyed a cozy, government-kickback based monopoly over prison phone and teleconferencing services, resulting sky high rates (upwards of $14 per minute at some prisons) for inmate families.

Most of these pampered monopolies have shifted over to monopolizing prison phone videoconferencing. And the relationship between government and monopoly is so cozy, several of these companies, like Securus, have been caught helping to spy on privileged attorney client communications.

Previous efforts to rein in prison monopolies were undermined by the Trump FCC and former FCC boss Ajit Pai, who worked for prison phone giant Securus before his time at the agency. Trump and Pai pulled the rug out from under the agencies own lawyers’ feet while they were trying to defend their efforts in court, resulting in a legal loss.

But the 2023 passage and signing of the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act clarified the agency’s authority giving it the ability to finally implement reform. That law was named after a grandmother who had begged the FCC to take action nearly two decades earlier.