The information below was shared with our team via Christopher A. Brown,
President of National Fatherhood Initiative.
If you work with incarcerated dads, proposed rate caps for phone and video calls could be a game-changer. These caps will apply to prisons and jails nationwide.
Phone and video calls are two of the primary ways incarcerated dads communicate with their families. An entire industry has grown around providing these services, and what they charge can be eye-popping. It can cost families hundreds of dollars a month to use these simple tools.
Acting on 2022 congressional legislation to make communications for incarcerated individuals and their families more affordable, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted late last week to lower the rate cap it set for phone calls in 2021 by a whopping 57% for prisons and 43% to 67% for jails, depending on their size. The cost of a call with an inmate in prison will drop from $.14/minute to $.06/minute. The cost of a call with an inmate in a medium-sized jail, for example, will drop from $.21/minute to $.07/minute. The FCC voted for the first time to set a cap on video calls. That rate is $.16/minute for prisons and $.11 to $.25/minute for jails, depending on size.
In addition to setting these caps, the commissioners targeted eliminating certain add-on fees that companies providing these services have charged. They must now cover those fees with the lower rates. (Ouch!) They also targeted eliminating the "commissions" states and counties receive from these providers--a proportion of the fees they charge. (Double ouch!) This incentive has been a key driver of the industry's growth.
To learn more about the rate caps and their implications, read the Prison Policy Initiative's (PPI) take. PPI is an advocacy group for incarcerated individuals and their families.
Comments