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FCC stops defending caps on prison phone call rates
The Federal Communications Commission's new anti-regulation stance is now affecting prisons. BuzzFeed News reports that the FCC is no longer defending two key parts of its caps on prison phone call rates: limits on intrastate call rates and the methods used to determine those rates. Ultimately, it's expected to push for eliminating the caps altogether. While this doesn't end litigation from phone service providers attempting to overturn the caps (they're merely on hold, not scrapped), it finds the FCC supporting the very companies it was challenging just weeks earlier.
FCC caps 'excessive and egregious' prison telephone rates
Who are the criminals in this story? The FCC has acted to reduce what it calls "excessive rates and egregious fees" of up to $14 per minute charged by federal and state prisons. The commission notes that while contact between inmates and families reduces recidivism, "high inmate calling rates have made that contact unaffordable for many families, who often live in poverty." It started the action after receiving a petition from Washington, DC grandmother Martha Wright, who requested relief from the "exorbitant" rates she paid to call her grandson in prison.
