Posted on 10/21/2015 4:32:08 PM PDT by markomalley
Are inmates in state and federal prisons charged too much to make a phone call? The Federal Communications Commission thinks they are.
On Oct. 22, the telecommunications regulator is expected to impose strict new caps on how much convicts can be charged for making phone calls from the big house. In so doing, the agency will (once again) be overstepping its bounds, overriding policy decisions set by those who actually run the prisons.
There is little doubt that making a phone call from prison can be expensive, with per minute rates of up to 89 cents, according to the FCC, not counting various per call fees that can be tacked on.
Thus, a fifteen minute phone call could cost over $13, compared to less than a dollar on the outside.
A Lack of Competition
The FCC blames the cost on a lack of competition, a fact that is blindingly obvious. Inmates are the ultimate captive customers, and competition is kept away by literal barriers to entry. But the gatekeepers in this marketplace are not the phone companies – it is the corrections officials themselves.
Prison authorities typically grant exclusive licenses to specialized firms that manage phone systems for correctional facilities. A big share of the revenue – as much as 96 percent — then goes back to the prisons, through fees due from these firms. In part, this money helps to offset the security costs to wardens of providing phone calls to inmates, ranging from call monitoring to providing escorts for repairmen. Much, however, is typically used to fund general prison operations and programs.
Prisoner rights activists have long denounced this system. By treating inmate phone calls as a cash cow, prisoners are discouraged from staying in contact with friends and family in the outside world. The resulting isolation, they argue, makes it harder for them to integrate into society when they are released.
FCC Regulations Are Not a Solution
Finding this argument persuasive, the FCC imposed interim caps on interstate phone rates in 2013. On Thursday, permanent – and broader – regulations will be voted on.
The new rules will apply to in-state as well as interstate calls, and lower the average cost of a 15-minute call to $1.65. The costs of this reduction, however, will be borne by the prison system, and ultimately the taxpayers, who will have fewer resources for other priorities.
This issue involves the sort of trade-off weighed every day by policymakers in deciding how to use the resources at their disposal. But in this case, the decision is not being made by those responsible for running prisons or ensuring that ex-convicts are successfully and safely re-integrated into society. Nor is it being made by legislators accountable to the people.
Instead, the decision is being made by the unelected members of the FCC, an agency with no expertise – or accountability – for prison management.
The regulators at the FCC have a disturbing habit of expanding their own jurisdiction (having asserted regulatory control over the Internet only this February).
That expansion should be stopped outside the prison walls.
When I was a new hack, an old timer told me that the definition of rehabilitation is to restore something to the way it was. In a convict's case, he was scum to begin with.
Thanks for reminding me about the PIN numbers. I’ve been retired since 2003, and forgot all about that part of the inmate phone program.
Are you saying the costs should be paid by other customers, or by the taxpayers? Or are you saying phone calls and security measures exist for free, like unicorn farts?
It costs money to provide phone calls to prisoners. Phone calls are not necessities, like food and shelter. Phone calls are a luxury. They are not naturally occurring. Someone must work to provide them.
No saying they should be free. Nice straw man by the way! Just saying that predatory price gouging a captive customer base. Let them keep gouging though, the cure for high prices is high prices.
So you provide one great example of three strikes laws working as intended. How many examples of injustice due to 3 strikes laws would you like me to provide as a counterpoint.
I’m not saying that we should let lawbreakrs off Scott Free but inmates pay absurdly high cost for something that is almost free to us today. When is the last time you paid a long distance charge? How much does your land like cost? (If you still have ine.)
Gee, I feel so bad for the convicts and their stupid homies, baby mamas, and mothers who continue to accept collect calls from people who couldn't care less about them. I say mothers because most of the cons are from single parent homes. I saw hard working mothers who after working all week, would get on a bus every Friday night in New York City, in the middle of the night, and travel several hours to central New York, just to go through a metal detector so they could sit in a visiting room to see their little darling boy. And the first thing the kid said to his mother wasn't "Hi Mom, how are you, or "It's so good to see you Mom." It was "What did you bring me Mom?"
It’s not a straw man. The logistics behind providing phone calls to prisoners are complicated and expensive.
You still haven’t answered the question. Who do you think should pay those expenses instead of the inmates and their families? Or are you seriously suggesting all those special arrangements are free, naturally occurring phenomena?
We do not owe convicted criminals luxury items like phone calls, even if they pay part of the expense. Even if they were to pay the full expense, they are not entitled to enjoy whatever luxuries they can afford. Their safety should be assured, but not their enjoyment.
I don’t feel bad about them having an unpleasant stay in prison. It’s not supposed to be pleasant. It shouldn’t be pleasant. If they want to enjoy the same pleasures we enjoy on the outside, they should live their lives accordingly. If they can’t afford to pay the added expenses necessary for supplying their luxury items, then they should learn to live without those luxury items. Most of us would like to have something we can’t afford, but we accept the limitations of our budgets. We don’t just take what we want and demand more.
Who says the Skype calls must be video calls?
How, exactly, would a Skype call be hacked, considering the defenses they must and do have against same in everyday use by millions of callers?
Who says the prisoner will have access to a computer, laptop or terminal? If the prisoner had only access to a headset or a handset, by which means will he hack?
Moreover, Skype is hardly the only VOIP-based option out there.
The point is that telecom costs can and should be reduced for all parties but as usual the mind of government is regimented and stunted.
It seems to me that if someone already brought six children into the world they might take meticulous precautions to avoid breaking the law.
Which ‘semi-minor violation’ carries a mandatory two year sentence?
Although I agree, in this case I'm not sure whom I have less sympathy for : the cons or the FCC, a distinction with not much of a difference.
Who initiated this "explosion of humanitarianism? How? Why?
On the other hand, the FCC and their hidden charges, and the elected criminals behind them, should have us all on the ends of our financial rope!
This discussion should prove interesting...
Slight tangent, admittedly, but since you’ve mentioned it...would love to see all taxes be of the ‘get a bill, send a check’ variety.
It would absolutely set the society and the government on their respective ears. Energy tax, phone tax, bed tax, etc. etc.
Of course!
How else are the stealth Muslim Mass Murderers in prison going to communicate and plan their next big one?
We are sooo screwed!
This debate has been going on for over a hundred years.
Rehabilitation for repeat offenders just doesn't work! By definition.
Bleeding hearts and the clueless have no more right to define what prisons should be than the hardened criminals themselves.
So just give it a rest.
Just check out my tag line.
Couldn't agree with you more.
We keep electing these intellectual midgets to control us.
WTF?
Not to derail the thread, but this subject ia among many important ones that Trump should be asked about.
"Will you address the bottomless pit of money in the UN? and our continued membership therein?"
"What will you do about hidden taxes?"
"Do you think ALL Federal offices, elected and appointed be subject to mandatory minimum intellectual competence requirements?"
We could (and should) lose at least half of all elected and appointed officials!
Rule by the wrong 5% of the intelligence (and educational) curves has put the country on the path to third world status.
I am personally offended by that.
I usually don't respond to stupid responses that commence with the word "so".
From time to time I make an exception to illustrate the meaninglessness of that tendency.
"So if their six kids would like to talk with daddy who is in the slammer for two years for his 10th offence, and plan to kill the rat who dropped a dime on them, a semi-minor violation ....that is O.K. with you???
What part of NO, I don't want to rehabilitate a 12-time loser don't you understand?
You're wasting your time.
I believe you are arguing with either an ex-con, or an egg or semen donor of an endless string of other ex-cons.
> Rehabilitation for repeat offenders just doesn’t work! By definition.
Who said anything about repeat offenders?
My bad!
I apologize.
I was unaware that this thread dealt exclusively with victims of mistaken convictions and severe jail time.
LOL! I was beginning to think the same thing. Glad to see somebody else thought that way too.
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