The FCC is showing a little mercy on prisoners.
On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission reduced phone-call rates it deemed "excessive rates and egregious fees" — that were as high as $14 per minute — as charged by federal and state prisons. The FCC ruled that "high inmate calling rates have made that contact unaffordable for many families, who often live in poverty." So, now, calls that used to cost one dollar per minute could be dropped to as low as 11 cents per minute, according to what prison policy advocate Aleks Kajstura told NBC News.
The move marks the first time the FCC has capped phone rates for local and in-state long-distance inmates' calls, even slashing its cost for interstate long-distance calls by up to 50 percent. The Commission also banned a majority of add-on fees tacked on by inmate calling services and imposed limits on whatever fees linger. The FCC found that these extra fees were increasing the cost of families communicating with their imprisoned relatives as high as 40 percent.
If there's one person to thank for this ruling, it's Martha Wright, a grandmother from Washington D.C., who filed a petition two years ago, asking for a break from excessive fees she had to pay to keep in touch with her grandson. The FCC initially acted on Wright's filing, setting an interim cap of 21 cents per minute for interstate debit and prepaid calls, while also requiring inmate calling services to present cost data.
