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WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 (AP) President Joe Biden signed a bill Thursday that would lower the cost of calls for inmates to call family and friends.
The legislation clarifies that the FCC, which regulates interstate and international communications via cable, radio, television, satellite and wire, can set limits on charges for audio and video calls within correctional facilities.
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Calls from prisons and jails are a lifeline for the incarcerated, but costs vary widely and can be a financial toll for adults already struggling in prison. Currently, Kentucky charges the most for a 15-minute call at $5.70 and $9.99 for a cell phone call, while New Hampshire charges just 20 cents for the same amount of time.
There are more than 1.2 million people in state and federal prisons, and tens of thousands more across the country awaiting trial or sentencing.
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The health crisis has highlighted disparities in state and federal phone rates as the COVID-19 pandemic freezes prison visits and forces inmates to rely heavily on their phones. Research by prison reform advocates and academics has shown that visitation and phone calls with loved ones can reduce a person’s likelihood of reoffending.
The bill was sponsored by recently retired Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat. Rob Portman, Ohio Republican. It’s named in honor of Martha Wright-Reed, a retired nurse who spent more than two decades trying to get more affordable rates because she couldn’t afford to pay more than $100 a month to the incarcerated. Grandson calls.
The FCC still has to go through a rulemaking process before formally making changes. In 2013, the FCC capped rates at 25 cents per minute, meaning a 15-minute call cost $3.75; before that, the average cost was about $17, about 10 times higher than the average per-minute rate . Prison Telecom has challenged that decision in court, arguing that the FCC has no authority to regulate calls.
In 2015, then-FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn told lawmakers she supported measures to limit costs. “Incarceration is a family problem, an economic problem and a social problem. Often the greatest impact of a prisoner’s sentence is on abandoned loved ones,” she said.
In 2017, under President Donald Trump, the FCC dropped its fight to lower prison phone rates. A federal appeals court ultimately ruled that the FCC has no authority to set rate caps.
The White House said the legislation Biden signed gave federal agencies powers that an appeals court ruled it did not have. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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