In a disheartening two to one ruling, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday in the case of Global Tel*Link vs. the FCC, that the FCC did not have the authority to set rates caps for intrastate phone rates in its 2015 Order. As a consequence, Inmate Calling Service (ICS) providers can continue to charge exorbitant rates for families and incarcerated individuals who can least afford it. The earlier FCC interstate rate caps of 21 cents for debit or pre-paid and 25 cents for collect calls remain in effect. Read the full decision here. The New York Times coverage is here.

FCC Commissioner Clyburn said in a statement:

Today’s D.C. Circuit decision is deeply disappointing, not just for me and the many advocates who have fought for more than a decade to bring about much needed reform in the inmate calling services regime … it is a sad day for the more than 2.7 million children in this country with at least one incarcerated parent. But the families who have experienced the pain, anguish and financial burden of trying to communicate with a loved one in jail or prison, are still counting on us, so we will press on.

I remain committed to doing everything I can from working with my colleagues at the Commission, to supporting the efforts of Congress and those in the states to bring relief to millions who continue to suffer from the greatest form of regulatory injustice I have seen in my 18 years as a regulator in the communications space.

Lee Petro, attorney for the Wright Petitioners, who petitioned the FCC nearly two decades ago, said:

Needless to say, we are profoundly disappointed the majority’s reasoning with respect to the FCC’s jurisdiction over intrastate rates. Judge Pillard’s dissent correctly focused on past court decisions [one of which Judge Edwards joined] which acknowledged the FCC’s ‘unambiguous’ authority to regulate intrastate rates. Judge Pillard also correctly focused on the necessity of the FCC to reject efforts by ICS providers to pass through to the families of inmates the significant kickback payments paid to state and local governments. These payments are voluntarily provided so that ICS providers obtain monopoly control of communications services at the correctional facility, and both the providers and correctional authorities have rejected all efforts to introduce competition at the facility-level. In the end, millions of wives, children and grandparents will lose, while privately-owned ICS providers and their correctional authority partners are permitted to continue “earn” unjust, unreasonable and unfair monopoly profits.

We share in their disappointment, but note New Jersey’s ban on commissions, 11 cent rate cap for domestic calls and 25 cent rate cap for international calls remain in place in New Jersey, even as they are challenged in Mercer Superior Court by another provider, Securus Technologies.

The day before a Senate Commerce Committee FCC Oversight hearing, Senator Booker sent a letter to Chairman Pai expressing his ‘disappointment and concerns‘ over the Chairman’s decision to stop FCC attorneys from defending the FCC’s intrastate rate caps in federal court. The completed briefs were already filed in the case, but Chairman Pai instructed FCC attorneys not to include intrastate rate caps in their oral arguments defending the order. Senator Booker requests ‘a detailed, written explanation…‘ by April 7th.

Read the letter here

The Senate Commerce Committee will hold an FCC Oversight hearing tomorrow, where the three current FCC Commissioners will testify. Look for some of the Democratic members of the committee to challenge the brash moves of recently promoted Chairman Pai.

Senate Commerce Committee Press Release:

FCC Commissioners to Testify on March 8

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene a hearing on Wednesday, March 8, 2017 at 10:00 a.m., entitled, “Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission.” As part of the Committee’s oversight responsibilities, the hearing will have a broad scope covering every aspect of the agency and major policy issues before the Commission…

Witnesses:
– The Honorable Ajit Pai, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
– The Honorable Mignon Clyburn, Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission
– The Honorable Michael O’Rielly, Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission

Hearing Details:
Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 10:00 a.m., Full Committee

The hearing will be held in Senate Hart Office Building, Room 216. Witness testimony, opening statements, and a live video of the hearing will be available on www.commerce.senate.gov.

Minority Members of the Committee: Ranking Member Bill Nelson FL, Maria Cantwell WA, Amy Klobuchar MN, Richard Blumenthal CT, Brian Schatz HI, Edward Markey MA, Cory Booker NJ, Tom Udall NM, Gary Peters MI, Tammy Baldwin WI, Tammy Duckworth IL, Maggie Hassan NH, and Catherine Cortez Masto NV.

The hearing video will be archived.

Mindy Fetterman of Stateline has written an article, Face to Face Family Visits Return to Some Jails, noting:

And as video visitation has increased, face-to-face visitation has declined. The PPI [Prison Policy Initiative] found in a 2015 study that 74 percent of jails dropped in-person visits when they started video visits. Often the private companies that provide video visitation services require governments to drop in-person visits.

Read more here.

Yesterday, a three judge panel of the DC Appeals Court heard the phone companies’ appeal of the FCC’s October 2015 Order capping in-state prison and jail phone rates. There’s a good summary in this article, The FCC has stopped defending its own rules lowering the cost of prisoner phone calls and commentary here: The FCC’s legal battle over prison phones just took a weird turn.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn wrote a very poignant blog about being in the courtroom: My personal story in search of #PhoneJustice.

January 11, 2017

Mignon Clyburn, Commissioner
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554

RE: #Solutions2020 Comment on Prison Phone and Video Rates by New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees and New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, Public Notice #342689

Dear Commissioner Clyburn,

Members of the New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees and New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic have commented on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) docket #12-375 and at a New York City listening tour forum you conducted since early 2013. Our first comments addressed interstate phone rates in New Jersey prisons and jails, followed by intrastate phone rates and, finally, international rates. In the current comments, we will update you with information concerning: 1) the recent New Jersey law capping phone rates and banning commissions in the state, 2) changes in phone rates and commissions in two county jails, 3) the closure of two facilities that we previously reported on and the recent surge in immigration detention, and 4) issues related to video visitation.

When we started our New Jersey Phone Justice Campaign, the state prisons charged a 33-cent flat fee for calls, and took a 41% commission. New Jersey county jails were charging even higher rates for non-local calls and taking commissions between 50% and 70%. Today, most facilities in New Jersey are charging 4.384 cents per minute , the rate negotiated in the current five-year state contract, and no commissions.

Read more here.

Read comments from the Wright Petitioners, signed on to by NJAID, here. These comments include extensive information on rates in facilities around the country, and highlight massive disparities in rates around the country, potential violations of the FCC’s Order to eliminate surcharges, and contain a call for costs of systems to detect contraband cellphone use not to be passed on to incarcerated individuals and their families.

Legislation Introduced to Restore Face to Face Family Visits in New Jersey Jails
Advocates Applaud Legislators Call for Reduced Cost for those Incarcerated and their Families

For Immediate Release, December 8, 2016 Contact: Karina Wilkinson, [email protected]

Trenton, NJ – Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Bergen) introduced legislation this week to guarantee face to face family visits for individuals incarcerated in New Jersey. The bill, A4389, would cap costs at 11 cents per minute, ban commissions, require refunds for poor quality and ban fees on professional visits from lawyers and clergy. Similar legislation governing phone rates in prisons and jails was signed into law in August, 2016.

“We applaud Assemblyman Johnson for taking the lead on ensuring that people incarcerated in New Jersey and their families are not taken advantage of by an unregulated industry that is only interested in profits and counties that are looking to gain revenue off of those who can least afford it,” said Karina Wilkinson of the New Jersey Phone Justice Campaign (NJPhoneJustice.org). “We also welcome Congresswoman Duckworth’s efforts at the federal level to require the FCC to regulate video visitation.”

Also this week, Congresswoman Duckworth (IL-8) introduced federal legislation, the Video Visitation in Prisons Act of 2016, that would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate video visitation services, including capping rates, ensuring quality and banning the elimination of in-person visits.

Read more here.

Today’s press release from Senator Booker and Congressman Rush:

Sen. Booker and Rep. Rush Introduce Concurrent Resolution to Address Prison Reform and Changes to Exorbitant Prison Phone Rates

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 8, 2016
Contact:
Jeff Giertz (Booker), [email protected]
Debra Johnson (Rush), [email protected]

WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.)introduced a Concurrent Resolution to address exorbitant prison phone rates between the imprisoned and their loved ones.

“Implementing fair and reasonable prison phone rates is the right thing to do and plain common sense. This resolution supports recent efforts by the FCC to protect those serving their time and their families from exorbitant and unfounded calling fees imposed on some of America’s most financially fragile households. These excessive fees are not only baseless attempts to profit off of vulnerable families, they undermine the financial security of those trying to stay in touch with a partner, parent, or child behind bars. In addition, excessive fees on inmate calls can pose a substantial barrier to successful reentry once individuals have paid their debt to society. That debt should not include paying excessive fees per minute to speak with your child, ” Sen. Booker said.

“For last decade, I have sought to end the ‘family divide,’ a term analogous to the ‘digital divide’ that exists with regard to unequal access to communication services between incarcerated members of our society and their loved ones,” said Rep. Rush. “I firmly believe that communication, along with the ability to express love toward family, is a fundamental need, and one’s humanity does not perish when they enter the prison system.”

Although this is an issue that affects families from all backgrounds (over 2.7 million children in the United States have at least one parent in prison), more than 60 percent of incarcerated prisoners are African- or Latino-American. In addition, many prison offenders come from economically vulnerable communities where unreasonable prison phone rates severely harm and exploit prison populations.

Research proves that there is a significant decline in recidivism rates for inmates who communicate with family members while incarcerated compared to those who do not. Expensive phone call rates deter such communication and result in costly re-incarceration. Scores of states receive hundreds of millions of dollars in commissions from companies to land exclusive contracts to provide prison phone services without facing competition from other lower-cost providers; a possible reason for why prison phone call rates have skyrocketed. Bloomberg reports the lucrative market for prison phone services, which totals approximately $1.2 billion dollars in annual revenues, is currently dominated by two companies, Global Tel Link and Securus Technologies.

Ensuring that prison phone rates are adjusted to reasonable levels will not only increase affordability of service for families, but will also help keep families intact as much as possible while reducing recidivism.

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ADVOCATES APPLAUD NEW JERSEY BILL CAPPING PRISON AND JAIL PHONE RATES

For Immediate Release, August 31, 2016
Contact: Karina Wilkinson, NJAID, [email protected]
Serges Demefack, AFSC, 973-854-0401

Trenton, NJ – The New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees (NJAID), New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, and Latino Justice PRLDEF welcome the signing into law of New Jersey legislation to ensure fair and reasonable phone rates in jails and prisons. The legislation, S1880 caps interstate and intrastate rates at 11 cents per minute and international calls at 25 cents, and bans commissions, or kickbacks, on calls.

“New Jersey now leads the country in protecting incarcerated individuals and their families from predatory phone rates,” said Karina Wilkinson, a member of NJAID. “We are pleased the Legislature and Governor acted to place the needs of New Jersey families and the community as a whole over profits.”

Commissions, currently at 50% to 70% in some New Jersey jails, drive up costs for families with loved ones in jail. The signing of the bill comes as welcome news to families in the New Jersey counties that continue to charge high rates and accept commissions from out-of-state companies at the expense of New Jersey residents.

“My three children had to live without me while I was detained,” said Pauline Ndzie, who was held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Hudson County Jail for five months. “I usually couldn’t afford to call them more than once a week. It isn’t fair to keep children from talking to their mother because of the high cost of phone calls.”

The legislation significantly decreases phone rates for international calling, which is particularly important for immigrant detainees who often rely on communication with family and others abroad to gather evidence for their immigration proceedings. The three New Jersey jails that house immigrant detainees (Bergen, Essex and Hudson jails) charge from nearly $18 to $45 for a 15-minute international call.

Joanna E. Cuevas Ingram, an Associate Counsel with LatinoJustice PRLDEF observed, “This is a major step forward in helping to prevent predatory intrastate and international calling rates from falling disproportionately onto Latino families and communities. Local facilities should not be permitted to charge $45 for a 15-minute international call to allow people to stay in touch with their family and loved ones. This new legislation will help ensure that fair and reasonable standard calling rates are provided in every detention facility in New Jersey, a path that we hope other states will soon follow.”

While the state and counties tied to the state contract have already reduced rates to less than 4.5 cents per minute and ended commissions, at least three counties in New Jersey continue to charge high rates. It currently costs more than minimum wage for a resident in Cape May, Salem, or Passaic for some calls to loved ones in jail. Under the legislation, all in-state calls will go down from $3.75 to $1.65 in Cape May, Salem, and Passaic Counties. The bill also removes the incentive for counties to leave the state contract, since they would not longer be able to take commissions.

“I was detained for 2 years, the calls were very, very expensive,” said P.F., an immigrant who was detained by ICE in a New Jersey jail. “I spent a long time without talking to my family. One day I called New York for 4 minutes and it took $9 out of my telephone account. Another day 5 to 6 minutes cost me $13. I never understood how charges were calculated. The price was too high.”

Allowing families of incarcerated individuals to remain in contact is not only humane, it also benefits the community at large. Permitting incarcerated individuals to communicate with their families and maintain ties to the community reduces recidivism and facilitates reintegration into society upon release from jail or prison.

“Affordable phone rates keep families and communities strong by helping them stay connected. New Jersey is showing real leadership to protect vulnerable families by enacting this legislation,” said Professor Alina Das, of the New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic.

“Making a basic phone call to a loved one is no longer a luxury for New Jersey immigrants in ICE custody, said Serges Demefack, End Detention and Deportation Project Coordinator
Immigrant Rights Program, of the American Friends Service Committee. “It is very disappointing when local governments benefit from the misfortune of people in detention. The new bill will bring much needed relief to immigrant detainees who are by law ineligible to receive legal assistance from the government.”

New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees, a project of the American Friends Service Committee, is a statewide coalition that advocates for immigrants in detention, educating the public, and organizing to eliminate detention. New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic is a leading institution in both local and national struggles for immigrant rights. LatinoJustice PRLDEF, originally established as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) in 1972, is one of the foremost national nonprofit civil rights legal defense and education funds working to advance, promote, and protect the legal rights of Latina/os throughout the nation. For information on NJAID and the NJ Phone Justice campaign, please visit www.njphonejustice.org.

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ADVOCATES DISAPPOINTED WITH HIGHER FCC JAIL PHONE RATE CAPS
URGE GOVERNOR CHRISTIE TO SIGN STRONG NEW JERSEY LEGISLATION

For Immediate Release
August 4, 2016
Contact: Karina Wilkinson, [email protected]
Serges Demefack, 973-854-0401

Trenton, NJ – Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed three to two a proposal that will raise rate caps for all calls from prisons, jails, and detention facilities. The vote comes less than a year after the FCC adopted comprehensive reforms of fees and rates in October 2015, which were partially stayed earlier this year due to a lawsuit filed by prison phone service providers. The FCC’s reconsideration of its Order will lead to earlier adoption of new higher rate caps intended to end exorbitant prison and jail phone rates.

The FCC’s actions make it clear that states have plenty of leeway to set fair and reasonable phone rates, as the New Jersey Legislature has attempted to do with S.1880, which awaits Governor Christie’s signature before it can become law. The legislation caps interstate and intrastate rates at 11 cents per minute and international calls at 25 cents, and bans commissions, or kickbacks, on calls currently at 50% to 70% in some New Jersey jails. Commissions drive up costs for families with loved ones in jail or prison.

“Governor Christie has the opportunity to sign strong legislation to bring much-needed relief to New Jersey families by capping prison and jail phone rates and banning kick-backs as high as 70%,” said Karina Wilkinson, a member of New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees (NJAID). “We urge Governor Christie to protect New Jerseyans from predatory prison phone service providers by signing S.1880 into law.”

The legislation would significantly decrease phone rates for international calling, which is particularly important for immigrant detainees who often rely on communication with family and others abroad to gather evidence for their immigration proceedings. The three New Jersey jails that house immigrant detainees (Bergen, Essex and Hudson jails) charge from nearly $18 to $45 for a 15-minute international call.

“Making a basic phone call to a loved one remains a luxury for New Jersey immigrants in ICE custody,” said Serges Demefack, of the American Friends Service Committee and NJAID. “It is simply wrong when local governments benefit from the misfortune of people in detention. The practice of government commissions on jail telephone contracts must end. It is immoral and unjust.”

The FCC’s October 2015 reforms capped rates at a maximum of 11 cents a minute for all state and federal facilities, and between 14 and 22 cents for local jails depending on the Average Daily Population (ADP). The FCC’s new caps are to be phased in over two years starting with implementation 90 days from publication in the Federal Register for prisons and 180 days for jails. The modified rate caps are as follows:

• 31 cents/minute for debit/prepaid calls in jails and detention centers with ADP up to 349;
• 21 cents/minute for debit/prepaid calls in jails and detention centers with ADP 350 to 999;
• 19 cents/minute for debit/prepaid calls in jails and detention centers with ADP over 1,000;
• 13 cents/minute for debit/prepaid calls, in state or federal prisons.

Allowing families of incarcerated individuals to stay in touch is not only humane, it also benefits the community at large. Permitting incarcerated individuals to communicate with their families and maintain ties to the community reduces recidivism and facilitates reintegration into society upon release from jail or prison.

New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees is a statewide coalition that advocates for immigrants in detention, educating the public, and organizing to eliminate detention. For information on NJAID and the NJ Phone Justice campaign, please visit www.njphonejustice.org.

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