The FCC won't enforce a ban on 'exorbitant' prison phone call prices

[In It to Win It]

https://www.theverge.com/news/695674/fcc-halts-martha-wright-reed-prison-phone-call-price-ban

The Federal Communications Commission will suspend the enforcement of a rule that would lower the price of prison phone and video calls. On Monday, the Trump-appointed FCC Chair Brendan Carr announced that prisons won’t have to comply with the pricing rules until April 1st, 2027, reversing plans to apply the caps this year.

Family members and friends of incarcerated people have long been charged fees the FCC described in 2024 as “exorbitant” to keep in touch with phone or video calls. Though some states — like Connecticut, California, Minnesota, and Massachusetts — have made phone calls from prison free, the majority of states allow fees that can reach as high as $11.35 for a 15-minute phone call, often including kickbacks to the jails and local governments.

In 2023, former President Joe Biden aimed to address call prices by signing the Martha Wright-Reed law, a rule that allows the FCC to regulate the rates of phone calls from prison and lower existing price caps. The FCC voted to adopt the new rates last year, promising to drop the price of a 15-minute phone call to just 90 cents in larger prisons. The rules were set to go into effect on a staggered basis starting January 1st, 2025.

On Monday, however, the FCC declared it will hold off on enforcing these rules for two more years. In his announcement, Carr says that the efforts to regulate prison phone calls are “leading to negative, unintended consequences,” claiming that the rules would make the caps “too low” to cover “required safety measures” and wouldn’t give states enough time to find another source of funds. He adds that the decision to delay these rules is supposed to ensure that “important safety and security protocols are maintained,” which he indicates could include the adoption of public safety tools with “advanced AI and machine learning.” Carr partially voted to approve the phone call caps in 2024.

On Monday, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission announced that prisons would no longer have to comply with new rules capping the price of prison phone calls until 2027: www.theverge.com/new...

— Bolts (@boltsmag.org) 2025-07-02T15:00:22.000Z

Some people in jails/prisons have to work for days in a row just to pay for a phone call to a loved one.

The Biden admin tried to halt that, cutting back on vulture phone services trying to squeeze people in jail with absurd phone fees. The Trump admin is saying "gouge away!"

— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) 2025-07-02T15:27:58.379Z

[ForgedCrank]

1. This should

be addressed by lawmakers at some point. From what I've seen, the prices are nothing short of outright robbery. The inmates aren't the ones paying it anyway. Every one I've ever seen is the calls are made as collect calls with reverse charges, so the receiving family member or friend is the one getting robbed, not the criminal. These aren't people with jobs and money so guess who is getting ripped off?