The Phone Corporations That Ruined Fathers Day
On Sunday, some families had to choose between wishing dad a Happy Father’s Day on the telephone and putting food on the table.
by Peter Wagner, June 18, 2013
On Sunday, some families had to choose between wishing dad a Happy Father’s Day on the telephone and putting food on the table. These days, most telephone calls are practically free, but for the 2.7 million kids in the United States who have an incarcerated parent, a call home can break the bank.
Most prisons and jails give their telephone contract to a single company that charges up to $17 for a 15 minute call. Phone bills are high in part because the prisons and jails demand that the phone companies kick back up to 84% of the revenue to the facility, and in part because the Federal Communications Commission has stalled on regulating the industry for more than a decade.
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