Stupid and Unjust: The Highway Robbery of Prison Phone Rates

For nearly 10 years a petition seeking to lower the rates prisoners and their families pay to talk on the phone has languished before the FCC. The Atlantic reports.

Over nearly two decades while he was in prison, Ulandis Forte would call his grandmother, Martha Wright-Reed, a couple of times a week and talk for about 15 minutes or less. The bill? Somewhere around $1,000 each year, Wright-Reed estimates.

To call home, America's prisoners (well, really their families, who accept the calls collect) pay rates many times what you or I spend on phone calls, the consequence of a dysfunctional marketplace in which the users have no choice but the phones provided -- literally a captive market -- and prison administrators can exact exorbitant commissions for providing the service.

Read full article.

emily | 5:09 PM | Inmates and Cell Phones |
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