On August 26, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued final rulings on multiple outstanding issues related to its recent order capping costs of communication with people in prisons and jails. Private telecommunications contractor Securus Technologies had filed several petitions, including a request for an exemption so it could offer “alternative rate options.” The FCC dismissed some of the company’s requests as irrelevant, and denied others as unjustified.
In July, the FCC approved a landmark set of regulations making incarcerated people’s communication services (IPCS) more affordable. The new rules include substantially lowering the maximum amounts private phone contractors can charge per minute or tack on in fees per call; the first-ever cap on prices of video visits; and prohibiting kickbacks from contractors to corrections departments, a practice so widespread that in some jurisdictions it’s a legal requirement.
In 2021, anticipating the change, Securus petitioned the FCC for a waiver to provide “alternative rate options that promote increased calling while reducing costs.” This refers to the company’s flat-rate subscription price plan, which it began piloting in 2020.
Specifically, the company sought exemption from three sections of the new rules: the mandatory rate caps on per-minute calls; the ban on flat-rate calls; and the ban on charging additional transaction fees.
The FCC dismissed the first two as irrelevant. It had already adopted an exemption to the mandatory rate caps by allowing Securus and other companies to offer flat-rate calls in addition to the per-minute calls. The third it denied.
“We retain today a key consumer protection rule,” the agency stated in defense of the ban on extra fees, “and Securus does not explain why a waiver of this section of the rules is necessary in light of the alternate pricing plan rules.”
Securus had also filed a petition with the FCC seeking clarification around what it described as “ambiguity” over what revenue providers could use for kickbacks, which it worried “could result in some providers being competitively disadvantaged in the bidding process.”
The FCC dismissed this as “effectively moot” under the new rules. Since there will be no more kickbacks, there will be no inconsistencies in how contractors are able to pay them.
Most corrections departments privatize their phone services, and video services where applicable. This means contracting with one of the small handful of private telecommunications companies like Aventiv Technologies (the parent company of Securus and JPay) and ViaPath Technologies (formerly Global Tel-Link, commonly known as GTL) that exists to profit off mass incarceration. Traditionally, the contract goes to the company offering the biggest cut of the profits—AKA kickbacks, or “site commissions,” as they’re referred to in all FCC documents.
Kickbacks are ultimately paid by families of the people in custody, since once a company lands the contract, it simply raises its rates to compensate. Once a company is awarded a contract for a state prison or county jail system, or private detention center, it has a monopoly on communications for everyone incarcerated there.
For prisons and larger jails—those with an average daily population above 999—that don’t currently require kickbacks, the following changes will take effect January 1, 2025. For smaller jails that don’t currently require kickbacks, the changes will take effect April 1, 2025. For all facilities that do currently require kickbacks, the changes will take effect July 1, 2025. Kickbacks themselves will be prohibited in prisons and larger jails after April 1, 2025, and in smaller jails after July 1, 2025.
The sliding scale is the FCC’s nod for the fact that smaller facilities may be less profitable for contractors compared to larger ones.
California, Connecticut, Colorado, Minnesota and Massachusetts have passed legislation making prison phone calls free. But this has not prevented contractors from simply raising costs of other services they control—such as money transfer, for which loved ones are charged a fee for each transaction. Securus also provides tablets to an increasing number of prisons and jails across the country, and controls the prices for each song available from its pre-approved music library and each message sent through its clunky version of email. So in addition to phone calls, it might have a monopoly on games, music, written communication, video communication or all of the above. Corrections departments continue to collect their kickbacks, they just come funneled through other channels.
People incarcerated in prisons and jails can make phone calls, but can’t receive them. But to dial an outgoing number, whether from a facility phone or a tablet, they first need money on their account. The only way for loved ones to add phone money is through the contractor, which charges a fee for the transfer.
The FCC issued the first caps on interstate and international calls a decade ago. But they remained relatively high, and a regulatory loophole prevented the agency from capping in-state calls. In 2023 Congress enacted the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, granting the FCC the authority behind the rulemaking in July.
Companies like Securus lobby heavily against regulatory checks like the Martha Wright-Reed Act and nudge corrections departments to further privatize all forms of communication. It’s one of the reasons prison administrators are so determined to stamp out contraband cell phones.
In 2000, Martha Wright-Reed sued private prisons operator CoreCivic, (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) alleging unjust profits as a result of its exclusive contracts with major prison telecoms companies. A few years earlier the prison where her grandson had been incarcerated had shut down, and he was shipped to a private prison on the other side of the country. Wright-Reed was blind and, unable to write letters or travel, communicated with her grandson entirely through phone calls. Some long-distance call rates exceeded $1 per minute before Wright-Reed’s litigation led to the first FCC caps in 2013.
Top image (cropped) via Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office/YouTube. Inset graphic via Federal Communications Commission.