A recent article by Andrew Kaufman in the International Business Times reports that Telephone companies are operating unfair monopolies in state
prisons, charging inmates exorbitant prices of more than $1-per-minute calls
and giving kickbacks to the jails, according to a report released in June.
Researchers at the Prison Policy Initiative found that
prison phone companies offer kickbacks of up to 84 percent of revenue to the
prisons, and generate even more revenue by offering bad service, according the
report, entitled “Please Deposit All Of Your Money.”
“In the normal phone market, companies like Verizon and
AT&T battle it out over who can lay claim to the largest, fastest and
highest quality networks,” Peter Wagner, one of the report’s co-authors, wrote
in a blog post. “But here, companies like Global Tel*Link, Securus and
ICSolutions find revenue in dropping calls because each call has both a
per-minute fee and a pay-call fee of up to $4.95.”
All too often the price of a single phone call from an
inmate eclipses the cost of basic monthly service, and this weighs heavily on
the economically disadvantaged," Clyburn said in a statement. "We
must do everything we can to ensure a reasonable mechanism for families to stay
in touch with loved ones."
The FCC is planning a workshop to discuss possible measures,
a FCC spokesman told International Business Times. But Wagner said the
Commission has already stalled too long.
“The prison phone companies have shown that they have no
incentive to treat the people paying their bills like customers,” Wagner wrote.
“Until the FCC acts, we can be sure that the industry will ignore their
customers and continue to look solely to their partners in contract and in
profit -- the jails and state prison systems -- for approval.”
“In the normal phone market, companies like Verizon and
AT&T battle it out over who can lay claim to the largest, fastest and
highest quality networks,” Peter Wagner, one of the report’s co-authors, wrote
in a blog post. “But here, companies like Global Tel*Link, Securus and ICSolutions
find revenue in dropping calls because each call has both a per-minute fee and
a pay-call fee of up to $4.95.”
The advocacy group said the Federal Communications
Commission should cap the rates and fees phone companies can charge in prisons,
modeled on a similar law in New York State and in the federal prison system.
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