FCC Opens Rulemaking Process To Lower Price of Prison Phone Calls | Black Agenda Report

FCC Opens Rulemaking Process To Lower Price of Prison Phone Calls

16 Jan 2013

🖨️ Print Article

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

One of the most accurate predictors of which prisoners will be re-incarcerated is the number and depth of their connections maintained with family on the outside. Jailers on the federal state and local level have long cut deals with phone companies to make huge profits on calls between prisoners and their families. Thanks to years of patient grassroots activism, that might be about to end.

FCC Opens Rulemaking Process To Lower Price of Prison Phone Calls

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Some years ago, one of my own children was in prison on the other side of the continent. She used to call home 15 minutes each Sunday night. That brief weekly phone call cost our family almost $100 each month. We were not alone.

The families of millions of federal, state and local prisoners have been viciously squeezed by the legal collusion of long distance phone companies with jailers from the Federal Bureau of Prisons down to state departments of corrections and local sheriffs. Federal regs require phone companies to deliver cheap local phone service, with a locality usually defined as the telephone exchange, the first three digits after the area code. Rates for calls outside an exchange however, were classified as “long distance,” and not subject to rate controls.

Phone companies made deals with jailers for exclusive access to their prisons and jails in return for lucrative one time kickbacks or a percentage of the gross, along with the occasional campaign or charitable contribution. For the jailers and phone companies it was a classic win-win situation in which everybody at the table got over, except of course prisoners and their families. Researchers attempting to gather information on the actual rates across the country have often been met with non-cooperation on the part of state and local officials reluctant to divulge their manifestly corrupt deals which have constructed this onerous toll booth blocking communication between prisoners and their families.

Ten years ago a grandmother filed a petition with the FCC noting that a five minute call with her grandson cost $18. In the decade since agitation and organizing across the country has finally moved the Federal Communication to take the first tentative step to remedy the problem. On December 28, 2012, the FCC finally issued a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” the beginning of the period in which it assembles information and takes public comment prior to the issuance of new rules.

At some point in the next few months a period of open public comment will ensue, in which members of the general public can weigh in online, by mail or in person on the issue. The place to go for updated information is www.phonejustice.org, that's www.phonejustice.org.

We need to re-integrate and absorb those currently behind prison walls into our families and communities. The cost of communicating with our relatives behind those walls must come down.

Visit phonejustice.org and sign up for their email list to keep our families connected. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at www.blackagendareport.com .

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report. He lives and works near Marietta GA and is a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. He can be reached via this site's contact page, or at bruce.dixon@blackagendareport.com.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130116_bd_prison_phone_justice.mp3

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio August 28, 2026
28 Aug 2026
In this week’s segment, we hear about the crisis in northwest Indiana, including the city of Gary, where some residents have gone more than two weeks without power after a storm. As in the rest of…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Journalist Sam Husseini Runs for Congress as a Green Party Candidate
28 Aug 2026
Our guest is Sam Husseini. He’s a veteran independent journalist and senior analyst at the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is now running for Congress in Maryland’s 4th district as a Green Party…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Gary, Indiana Struggles for Two Weeks Without Electricity
28 Aug 2026
Akili Shakur is a revolutionary activist and the wife of political prisoner Shaka Shakur. She joins us from Gary, Indiana, where some residents have been without power for more than two weeks after…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist , Dhoruba bin-Wahad , Kelonji Changa
The Guardian Open Letter Exposed: Margaret Kimberley & Dhoruba Bin Wahad Speak Out
26 Aug 2026
In this special broadcast, BAR Senior Columnist and Executive Editor Margaret Kimberley and Black Panther Veteran Dhoruba Bin Wahad offer an uncompromising, sharp critique of the anti-Iranian open…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner Meeting Reveals Ugly Truths About U.S. Politics
26 Aug 2026
If the Democratic Party prevails in the midterm elections, Hakeem Jeffries will become the Speaker of the House of Representatives. But his decision to meet with Jared Kushner was a textbook case of…