Tell the FCC to stop corrupt phone price gouging

Please sign this petititon today by Color of Change urging the FCC to stop prison phone companies from gouging families of incarcerated people:

Indefensible price gouging for basic communication is a fact of life for millions of American families with loved ones who are currently incarcerated. They're a captive audience for the phone service providers awarded monopoly contracts by prison operators, and are accordingly charged 15 times — or more — than regular phone rates.

Martha Wright, an 86-year-old grandmother, has spent the last decade of her life fighting these predatory practices in the courts, and now before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). For Wright, choosing to maintain her relationship with her grandson as he's been transferred between four separate correctional facilities in as many states has meant at times going without her medication — and even without food — in order to afford their twice-weekly phone calls.

Keeping up regular family contact is not only key to supporting our loved ones while they are incarcerated, but it also plays a critical role in reducing recidivism and assisting with successful reintegration post-release. In order to address the rampant profiteering that is so disruptive to these family and community relationships, the FCC is currently considering capping prison phone rates in line with those available to the general public — but it's only accepting public comment through this Monday, March 25th.

Please join us in urging the FCC to stand up for families and curb the abusive business practices of prison phone providers. It only takes a moment.

Prison phone corporations don’t “compete” for contracts in the normal sense of the word, meaning that they don’t win bids by offering the lowest rates. This is because phone companies aren’t contracting with the people who actually use their service by making and receiving phone calls — they’re inking deals with states, localities and private prison operators that aren’t directly impacted by calling rates, but benefit to the tune of millions of dollars annually from commissions charged on each call. In at least Louisiana, Alaska, Nevada and Alabama, increasing these corrupt kickbacks from the phone service providers has been shown to have been the determining factor in selecting winning contract bids.

And while government entities generating revenue by punishing the families of prisoners is a scandal, it's the private prison industry in particular that has a ruthless track record of profit-seeking behavior that actively targets and exploits the most vulnerable among us. The country’s largest private prison operator, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), was a key architect of Arizona’s notorious SB1070, the racial profiling law designed to fill prison beds with anyone unable to prove on demand that they aren’t an undocumented immigrant. The GEO Group, the industry’s second largest player and regular subject of civil and human rights abuse investigations, was barred from doing business with the entire state of Mississippi after massive corner-cutting at their Walnut Grove youth facility led to rampant sexual and other physical abuse by staff of the minors in their care.

In light of states’ widespread practice of warehousing their prisoners in private facilities owned by CCA and GEO Group out of state — an ill-conceived attempt to address budget shortfalls and overcrowding that has failed miserably on both counts — the cost of interstate prison phone calls deserves special scrutiny. Transferring inmates — often repeatedly — across state lines makes physical visits virtually impossible for most family members due to the distance and expense involved. And private prisons don’t have to comply with the same visitation standards as their public counterparts, leaving inmates and their support networks even more reliant on the phone system for maintaining any kind of connection during incarceration.

For Black men in their 30s, one in every ten is in prison or jail on any given day, and federal sentencing data shows that Black men receive longer sentences than white men for the same crimes. Among Black children, one in nine has an incarcerated parent, constituting an enormous captive audience for prison phone operators preying on the need to keep family connections alive over the course of years or even decades apart.

Demand that the FCC cap interstate phone rates and stop prison phone operators from exploiting our families for extortionate profits. And when you do, please ask your friends and family to do the same.

Thanks.