[Occupymendocino] prison phone rates

[Richard Karch]

Dear

Bethany Fraser struggled to pay the bills while her husband was incarcerated. The mother of two made it a priority to maintain telephone contact between her children and their father while he served a ten-year prison sentence, but the phone calls to keep them connected cost more than she spent on food and utilities every month.1 By the end of her husband’s sentence, she had moved her family three times, each time to a smaller home so that she could stay afloat financially. Bethany knew that no parent or significant other should have to do what she did, which is why she joined The Campaign for Prison Phone Justice and a coalition of organizations including ColorofChange that have been leading this fight for more than a decade.

It's a fight that thousands of ColorofChange members have also joined by raising their voices about the predatory prison phone rates that impact millions of families with incarcerated loved ones. For years, prison phone companies got rich off the backs of a captive audience, charging families rates as high as $17 for a 15-minute call.2 After hearing from you, the Federal Communications Commission took the huge step of capping long-distance prison calls at a max rate of $3.75.3

But our work is not done. Local and state governments still continue to receive massive kickbacks from prison phone companies in exchange for exclusive contracts. These kickbacks are subsidized by sky-high fees companies levy on families—mostly black and brown—fighting to stay connected to loved ones. While the FCC rule limited kickbacks and capped long-distance calls, those calls are only a fraction of the service provided by prison phone companies. Families need rules that cap sky-high phone rates on local calls to prisons, too.

Families should not be subsidizing states' penal budgets and padding the pockets of phone companies.

Tell the FCC to stop predatory prison phone rates once and for all by capping in-state calls at the lowest rate possible.


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