Just what are governors who talk about the need for prison reform doing trying to stop the FCC's historic effort to protect the families of incarcerated people from exploitative prison phone companies?
by Emily Widra,
March 14, 2016
As New York’s experience shows, lowering the price of phone calls home from prisons and jails has many benefits: it allows families to better stay in touch, reduces contraband cellphone use, and strengthens family relationships in preparation for when incarcerated people are released and return to their families and communities. That’s why New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision Commissioner, Anthony Annucci, called New York’s decision to reduce the rates of phone calls to less than five cents per minute “among the most cost-effective family reunification options that we offer.”
Last fall, the FCC followed the lead of states like New York and decided that families of incarcerated people nationwide should be able to benefit from reasonable phone rates. Unfortunately, some states are taking a penny-wise and pound-foolish approach and trying to block the FCC’s historic rate caps. First, the state of Oklahoma tried to join a group of phone companies in opposing the FCC prison phone rate caps. Then, eight additional states moved to join Oklahoma’s resistance to the rate caps: Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Nevada.
What’s shocking is that the governors of most of the states challenging the FCC are governors that have previously supported criminal justice reform in general and specifically, reducing recidivism and keeping families together. But by trying to block the FCC’s prison rate caps, these states are working to do the exact opposite: they are promoting policies that increase the financial and emotional burden that incarceration already imposes on families.
For example, in 2011, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed a bill into law that worked to allow people to serve their sentences closer to home by expanding community sentencing programs and electronic monitoring of people convicted of low-risk, nonviolent offenses. She has also spoken about the need for maintaining family connections when a parent is imprisoned in a correctional facility: “A child with a parent in prison is five times more likely to end up in the correctional system. We can do something about that. Many of our children who have a parent who’s in a correctional facility will grow up to live in poverty.” Making it possible for incarcerated parents to talk to their children for less than $1 per minute is one common-sense way of reinforcing these family ties.
The governors of Arkansas and Indiana have also explicitly expressed support for strengthening family ties and reducing recidivism rates, two goals that will be served by the FCC rate caps. Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, in his keynote address at the Charles Koch Institute’s Advancing Justice Summit, stated that his goal for criminal justice reform is to “give those who are re-entering society – the ex-offenders – a better second chance at a new life” by strengthening community connections.
Similarly, Indiana Governor Mike Pence has repeatedly advocated for a focus on rehabilitation: “first-time offenders ought to be dealt with in a way that’s focused on reformation, that’s focused on coming alongside these young men and giving them access to a full range of programs and individuals that will inspire them to be more and to make better choices in their lives.” Families are often the greatest source of inspiration and hope for people upon release. Governor Pence also emphasizes how high recidivism rates and prison time break apart families: “[recidivism is] tearing at the fabric of our neighborhoods, tearing at the fabric of our families, and that’s why I’ve been so committed … from the outset of this administration to drive new ideas and new innovations.”
As New York’s example shows us, FCC rate caps would surely make it easier for families to stay in touch. If the elected officials of these states are seeking to reduce recidivism and strengthen family and community ties, then why exactly are they opposing the FCC’s efforts to support these same goals?
We're hiring for a Policy Fellow to produce cutting edge research
by Bernadette Rabuy,
March 1, 2016
Are you interested in joining our dedicated team to fill critical data and messaging gaps in the movement for criminal justice reform? Do you want to produce cutting edge research and take the lead on a series of projects similar in scope to those in our National Incarceration Briefing Series?
If so, our new Policy Fellowship might be for you. Please spread the word, and if you think the position is for you, please apply.
Our latest comments urging the FCC to regulate advanced communication services in correctional facilities.
by Alison Walsh,
February 12, 2016
Spurred by our January 2015 report, Screening Out Family Time: The for-profit video visitation industry in prisons and jails, the Federal Communications Commission requested further comment on the regulation of advanced communication services such as video visitation and electronic messaging (or “email in prisons”).
Building on our last series of comments to the FCC, in which we identified solutions to four unresolved issues in the prison phone industry, we recently submitted comments calling for oversight of video visitation and electronic messaging.
Our latest video visitation comments encourage facilities to employ video systems that charge users on a per-minute basis and do not require advanced scheduling. We also highlight examples of video visitation companies attempting to profit from contracts that mandate the elimination or restriction of in-person visitation, and point out the danger in allowing government officials to cede control over visitation policies to private companies. Demand for video services should be achieved through reasonable pricing and flexible scheduling, not at the expense of traditional in-person visitation.
Our new report, You’ve Got Mail: The promise of cyber communication in prisons and the need for regulation, documents the benefits and drawbacks of electronic messaging in correctional facilities. And our comments on this topic affirm the FCC’s jurisdiction over electronic messaging, arguing that this emerging technology warrants FCC protection.
We recommend that the FCC put these safeguards in place to ensure that these new technologies facilitate communication rather than take advantage of people with no other options.
Our newest staffer comes to us from the Fair Housing Council of Oregon and The Massachusetts Fair Housing Center.
by Peter Wagner,
January 28, 2016
Please welcome our new Policy & Communications Associate, Alison Walsh.
Alison is a 2009 graduate of Vassar College with a degree in American Culture, where her weekly classes with people incarcerated at the Otisville Prison and Dutchess County Jail through the Green Haven Prison Program introduced her to the need for prison reform.
Welcome Alison!
New report finds electronic messaging in prisons and jails is a product of questionable value at inflated prices
January 21, 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 21, 2016
Contact:
Bernadette Rabuy
brabuy [at] prisonpolicy.org
Easthampton, MA — Given the extreme distances that separate incarcerated people from their families, technological innovations that allow more frequent and faster communication between incarcerated people and their families would be a welcome improvement. A new report by the Prison Policy Initiative finds that while many facilities are still stuck in the last century, the growing number of facilities experimenting with electronic messaging are all too often providing incarcerated people and their families a product of questionable value at inflated prices.
The report, You’ve Got Mail: The promise of cyber communication in prisons and the need for regulation, analyzes the current state of electronic messaging in correctional facilities. The report finds that electronic messaging — which is often referred to as “email for prisoners” — actually has very little in common with the email services available to free-world users. For example:
- Some electronic messaging systems are “inbound only.” With these systems, free-world users are able to electronically send a message to an incarcerated person, but the incarcerated person must respond with a handwritten letter.
- While email is free for those of us in the free-world, private companies charge incarcerated people and their families anywhere from 5¢ to $1.25 per message to communicate electronically.
“Calling the electronic messaging offered to incarcerated people and their families ‘email’ would be an insult to email,” explains Stephen Raher, author of You’ve Got Mail. “Once again, it seems that the prison phone giants are providing more of the same old exploitation rather than providing true innovation.”
The report builds on the Prison Policy Initiative’s work uncovering the previously hidden prison and jail phone industry and exposing the harmful trend of video visits replacing traditional in-person jail visits. The report was submitted to the Federal Communications Commission in response to its request for comments on advanced communication services in prisons and jails and provides the FCC with nine recommendations. The report also offers seven other recommendations for legislators, state public utility commissions, and correctional administrators, all with an eye toward transforming electronic messaging from a poorly designed and expensive technology to a fair and reasonable tool for communication.
You’ve Got Mail: The promise of cyber communication in prisons and the need for regulation is a collaboration between Prison Policy Initiative and pro bono legal analyst Stephen Raher of the organization’s Young Professionals Network. Stephen’s previous work with the Prison Policy Initiative provided a first-of-its-kind analysis of high-fee release cards.
The report is available at: http://www.prisonpolicy.org/messaging/report.html
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In response to the FCC's request for comments, we submitted four analyses of unresolved issues
by Aleks Kajstura,
January 21, 2016
In response to the FCC’s call for further comments on their regulations of the prison and jail phone industry, we submitted our analysis of and recommendations on four unresolved issues:
- Single Calls: we explain how the FCC’s attempt to rein in “single call” programs left a significant loophole that can be easily closed.
- Western Union and MoneyGram: we highlight an unintentional loophole in the FCC’s regulation of fee-sharing schemes between the phone companies and money transfer providers, and suggest that the FCC could instead copy Alabama’s solution to the problem.
- Bundling unrelated services: we outline how bundling phone services with unrelated financial and other technology services is creating a growing opportunity for companies to create an end run around the FCC’s current regulations in the short term as well as undermine the FCC’s long-term goals of fostering a self-regulating ICS market through competition.
- Video visitation: we updated the FCC on issues surrounding video visitation, showing that a national consensus has developed acknowledging that the growing trend of video visitation replacing traditional in-person visitation is a major step in the wrong direction and providing 5 recommendations for regulation.
Reply comments are due February 1, and can be submitted online for docket number 12-375.
Massachusetts House unanimously votes to end unnecessary license suspensions for drug offenses
by Bernadette Rabuy,
January 15, 2016
Last week, the Massachusetts House unanimously approved H. 3039, which would repeal the state’s practice of automatically suspending driver’s licenses for drug offenses unrelated to driving.
Last year, our report, Suspending Common Sense in Massachusetts: Driver’s license suspensions for drug offenses unrelated to driving, found that the state automatically suspends the driver’s licenses of thousands of residents each year for drug convictions unrelated to driving. These suspensions make roads more dangerous, waste taxpayer and law enforcement resources, and prevent people with previous involvement in the criminal justice system from fulfilling responsibilities that require driving.
The Senate unanimously approved a stronger version of the bill last year. Next, legislators will likely negotiate a compromise, and then it will land on Governor Baker’s desk. The bill has broad support from Attorney General Maura Healey, the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association, sheriffs, and editorial boards all over the state. Stay tuned for next steps and for a Prison Policy Initiative report on the other states that have yet to reverse this ineffective relic from the War on Drugs.
