Media Contact:
Mark Wigfield, (202) 418-0253
mark.wigfield@fcc.gov
For Immediate Release
FCC TAKES NEXT BIG STEPS IN REDUCING INMATE CALLING RATES
Also Seeks Comment on Reforms for Video Visitation and additional reforms for international
rates and ancillary charges
Washington, D.C
. (October 22, 2015) - Acting on its mandate to ensure that rates for phone
calls are just, reasonable and fair for all Americans, the Federal Communications Commission
today took further steps to rein in the excessive rates and egregious fees on phone calls paid by
some of society's most vulnerable: people trying to stay in touch with loved ones serving time
in jail or prison.
With the cost of a call sometimes ballooning to $14 per minute once inside prison walls, the
FCC for the first time capped rates for local and in-state long-distance inmate calling, and cut its
existing cap on interstate long-distance calls by up to 50 percent.
At the same time, the FCC closed loopholes by barring most add-on fees imposed by inmate
calling service (ICS) providers, and set strict limits on the few fees that remain. Extra fees and
charges can increase the cost of families staying in touch by phone with loved ones who are
incarcerated by as much as 40%.
While contact between inmates and their loved ones has been shown to reduce the rate of
recidivism, high inmate calling rates have made that contact unaffordable for many families, who
often live in poverty. Reducing the cost of these calls measurably increases the amount of contact
between inmates and their loved ones, making an important contribution to the criminal justice
reforms sweeping the nation.
Today's action builds on reforms begun by the FCC in 2013, when it acted on a petition by
Martha Wright, a grandmother from Washington, D.C., for relief from the exorbitant rates she
was paying to call her grandson in prison. These reforms set an interim cap of 21 cents per minute
on interstate debit and prepaid calls, required ICS providers to file cost data. In October 2014, the
FCC sought comment on the data and proposed to reform all inmate calling rates and fees.
The Order adopted by the Commission today acts on that data by lowering the cap to 11 cents per
minute for all local and long distance calls from state and federal prisons, while providing tiered
rates for jails to account for the higher costs of serving jails and smaller institutions.
The new caps fully cover the enhanced security requirements of inmate calling, while allowing
providers a reasonable return. Following are key provisions of the Order:
Ensures that rates are just, reasonable and fair by establishing caps on all interstate
and intrastate inmate calling rates
o New caps reduce the average rates for the vast majority of inmate calls substantially,
from $2.96 to no more than $1.65 for a 15-minute intrastate call for most calls, and
from $3.15 to no more than $1.65 for most 15-minute interstate calls.
o A tiered rate structure accounts for the relatively higher costs ICS providers face in
serving jails (especially small jails) as opposed to state and federal prisons. The rate
caps are as follows:
11 cents/minute for debit and prepaid calls in state or federal prisons.
o Approximately 71% of inmates reside in state or federal prisons
14 cents/minute for debit and prepaid calls in jails with 1,000 or more
inmates.
o Approximately 85% of inmates reside in institutions with populations
exceeding 1,000
16 cents /minute for debit and prepaid calls in jails with 350-999 inmates.
22 cents /minute for debit and prepaid calls in jails of up to 349 inmates.
Rates for collect calls are slightly higher in the first year and will be phased
down to these caps over a two-year transition period.
Eliminates unnecessary fees by capping or banning burdensome ancillary service
charges, which can add nearly 40% to the cost of a single call
o Caps the following ancillary service charges at the levels listed below, based on cost
data collected by the FCC:
Automated payment by phone or website: $3.
Payment through a live agent: $5.95.
Paper bill fee: $2.
Third-party financial transaction fees, such as fees charged by MoneyGram
or Western Union, may be passed through with no mark-up.
o Prohibits all other ancillary service charges.
o Allows mandatory taxes and regulatory fees to be passed through with no mark-up.
o Tackles other loopholes by prohibiting mandatory minimum payments and places a
floor on mandatory maximum payments.
Discourages site commission payments: payments by ICS providers to institutions
that are not related to providing calling services
o Defines the term site commission broadly and reaffirms that site commissions are
profits, not a cost of providing ICS.
o Excludes the payment of site commissions from the FCC's determination of rate caps.
o While the Commission does not prohibit providers from paying site commissions, it
strongly encourages parties to move away from site commissions and urges states to
take action on this issue.
Bans flat-rate calling
o Disallows providers from imposing so-called flat-rate calling, that is, a flat rate for a
call up to 15 minutes regardless of actual call duration.
Facilitates access for people with disabilities
o Requires providers to offer free access to telephone relay service (TRS) calls for
inmates with communications disabilities and applies a steeply discounted rate for
TTY-to-TTY calls.
o Reminds correctional institutions of their obligation to make TRS available to people
with communications disabilities.
o Encourages jails and prisons to allow commonly used forms of TRS and requires
them to report service quality issues.
Oversight and monitoring
o To monitor compliance, IC
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