{"id":668,"date":"2025-07-01T18:19:43","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T14:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/the-fcc-wont-enforce-a-ban-on-exorbitant-prison-phone-call-prices\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T18:19:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T14:19:43","slug":"the-fcc-wont-enforce-a-ban-on-exorbitant-prison-phone-call-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/the-fcc-wont-enforce-a-ban-on-exorbitant-prison-phone-call-prices\/","title":{"rendered":"The FCC won\u2019t enforce a ban on \u2018exorbitant\u2019 prison phone call prices"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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<\/a> that prisons won\u2019t have to comply with the pricing rules until April 1st, 2027, reversing plans to apply the caps this year.<\/p>\n

Family members and friends of incarcerated people have long been charged fees the FCC described in 2024<\/a> as \u201cexorbitant\u201d\u00a0 to keep in touch with phone or video calls. Though some states \u2014 like Connecticut, California, Minnesota, and Massachusetts \u2014 have made phone calls from prison free, the majority of states allow fees that can reach as high as $11.35<\/a> for a 15-minute phone call, often including kickbacks to the jails and local governments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2023, former President Joe Biden aimed to address call prices by signing<\/a> the Martha Wright-Reed law, a rule that allows the FCC to regulate the rates<\/a> of phone calls from prison and lower existing price caps<\/a>. The FCC voted to adopt the new rates last year<\/a>, 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<\/a> on a staggered basis starting January 1st, 2025.<\/p>\n

On Monday, however, the FCC declared it will<\/a> hold off on enforcing these rules for two more years. In his announcement, Carr says that the efforts to regulate prison phone calls are \u201cleading to negative, unintended consequences,\u201d claiming that the rules would make the caps \u201ctoo low\u201d to cover \u201crequired safety measures\u201d and wouldn\u2019t give states enough time to find another source of funds. He adds that the decision to delay these rules is supposed to ensure that \u201cimportant safety and security protocols are maintained,\u201d which he indicates could include the adoption of public safety tools with \u201cadvanced AI and machine learning.\u201d Carr partially voted to approve the phone call caps in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez slammed Carr\u2019s decision<\/a> to pause the implementation of the Martha Wright-Reed Act. \u201cRather than enforce the law, the Commission is now stalling, shielding a broken system that inflates costs and rewards kickbacks to correctional facilities at the expense of incarcerated individuals and their loved ones,\u201d Gomez said in a statement. \u201cIt\u2019s time for the FCC to do its job. Its responsibility is not to protect profit-driven contracts \u2014 it is to uphold the law and serve the public.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Federal Communications Commission will suspend the enforcement of a rule that would lower the price of prison phone and […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}