Monday, February 13, 2017

Trump Lifts Cap on Costs of Calls for Prisoners

Little noticed in the furor over the travel ban and other controversies, the Trump administration quietly made a decision that will affect hundreds of thousands of people. The Federal Communications Commission, under new leadership, has informed a court that it will no longer defend an Obama-era effort to cap the costs of phone calls between prisoners and their families. Companies like Securus Technologies, Global Tel Link and CenturyLink may be pleased, but parents and siblings will now go back to paying hundreds of dollars a month to speak with their loved ones. — Eli Hager, of The Marshall Project

(Parents, siblings, fiances, wives, husbands, children, friends, colleagues, clergy, prisoners themselves--all are likely now to go back to paying rates even more exorbitant than the current ones.)