Help us stay one step ahead of the exploitative prison phone industry

Prison phone companies are sneaky but we've learned how to uncover their tricks. Will you help us stay one step ahead?

by Peter Wagner, September 11, 2015

Three years ago today, the Prison Policy Initiative released our first report exposing the dirty prison and jail telephone industry that seeks to charge children of incarcerated parents $1 per minute for a simple phone call. Almost overnight, we caught the attention of the press and got more people talking.

The Prison Policy Initiative operates on a shoestring budget, but, even for us, this first phones report was special. The author of The Price To Call Home: State-Sanctioned Monopolization In The Prison Phone Industry, Drew Kukorowski, volunteered his time to do the in-depth research that was required to uncover this previously hidden industry, and we managed to pull together the gifts of our individual donors to cover the rest.

The continued support of these donors then allowed us to dig deeper in a second report less than 8 months later, Please Deposit All of Your Money:
Kickbacks, Rates, and Hidden Fees in the Jail Phone Industry. We exposed:

• Industry contracts with local jails, which charge even more for calls than in prisons
• The hidden fees that can double the cost of each call

And because these companies have shown great skill at exploiting loopholes to retain their monopoly profits, our work continues. In January, we exposed that many of these phone companies have expanded their services to video visitation, in which they ban in-person visits to spur demand for expensive video chats.

I’m thrilled to say that our research and advocacy are making a difference, and the Federal Communications Commission is set to protect all families of incarcerated people. These wins are also having huge side effects: the debate over phones is helping this country finally realize how our criminal justice policies often reach outside the prison walls to punish entire families and communities.

I’m expecting the FCC to issue a robust ruling, but this billion dollar industry is going to fight back. These companies are sneaky, and they’ll surely go running to the courts again. But, over the last three years, with the support of our donors, we’ve learned how to follow the money and uncover their dirtiest tricks.

Neither we, nor the 2.7 million children with an incarcerated parent, would ever have gotten this far without a small group of individual donors. Now, we need to continue to stay one step ahead of this exploitative industry. Can you join our supporters and make a gift today?