Advocates ask FCC to block sale of Securus, investigate prison phone giant’s disregard for regulations
Securus fights against regulations and then flouts the ones that survive. FCC should investigate, not approve sale.
by Aleks Kajstura, June 21, 2017
The Prison Policy Initiative joined the Wright Petitioners, as well as other advocates in requesting that the FCC block the latest sale of Securus and investigate the company’s continued flouting of FCC regulations.
The filing highlights some of Securus’ most egregious rule-breaking, including predatory practices going back at least a decade. For example,
In short, per-call, per-connection and flat-rate charges have been prohibited for more than a year now. Securus fought the prohibition, and when it lost the fight, Securus it nevertheless continued the practice of charging the fees, but under a different name.
[W]hen the Commission adopted rules to prohibit per-call connection and flat-rate fees, Securus simply renamed its connection fees as “first-minute rates” and began charging even more money for the same prohibited charge.
And the last time Securus was sold, in 2013, the sale was allowed to go through because Securus promised to “not make any ‘changes in rates, terms, or conditions of service as a result of the transaction.’ … Securus failed to comply with that commitment by actually raising [in-state phone] rates across the country.”
If this sale goes through, Securus will ultimately be owned in part by Tom Gores; a curious acquisition for someone who owns the Detroit Pistons. You see, Securus’ shenanigans with the connection charges hit Michigan residents hardest. Gores’ own ties to the state, as well as the Detroit Piston’s own focus on commitment to their community, make one wonder why Gores would be interested in a company that charges some Michigan residents as much as $8.20 for just a single minute of a call from an incarcerated loved one.
Securus continues to fight regulations so that it can continue to exploit the country’s poorest families. While Securus went to court to fight caps on how much it could charge for calls, it re-jiggered its in-state rates to compensate for regulations banning exploitative charges for interstate calls. “As a result, a 15-minute [in-state] call from sixteen (16) county jails in Michigan, and twentyeight (28!) county jails overall, costs more than $20, entirely due to the fact that the first-minute rate at these correctional facilities is at least $5.00 higher than the charge for each additional minute.”
All this is even more distressing in light of what the Washington Post calls “A crushing court decision for prison inmates and their families.” The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia recently vacated the FCC’s in-state rate caps, and while the courts sort through some remaining questions, they leave families at Securus’ mercy for those calls, as we explained in February.
Securus fights against regulations and then flouts the ones that survive. This is a company that should be investigated, not sold off to the next owner who can stomach it.
