"State of Phone Justice: Local jails, state prisons and private phone providers"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new Prison Policy Initiative report authored by Peter Wagner and Alexi Jones.  Here is how the report gets started:

At a time when the cost of a typical phone call is approaching zero, people behind bars in the U.S. are often forced to pay astronomical rates to call their loved ones or lawyers. Why?  Because phone companies bait prisons and jails into charging high phone rates in exchange for a share of the revenue.

The good news is that, in the last decade, we’ve made this industry considerably fairer:

• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) capped the cost of out-of-state phone calls from both prisons and jails at about 21 cents a minute;
• The FCC capped many of the abusive fees that providers used to extract extra profits from consumers; and
• Most state prison systems lowered their rates even further and also lowered rates for in-state calls.

However, the vast majority of our progress has been in state-run prisons.  In county- and city-run jails — where predatory contracts get little attention — instate phone calls can still cost $1 per minute, or more.  Moreover, phone providers continue to extract additional profits by charging consumers hidden fees and are taking aggressive steps to limit competition in the industry.

These high rates and fees can be disastrous for people incarcerated in local jails.  Local jails are very different from state prisons: On a given day, 3 out of 4 people held in jails under local authority have not even been convicted, much less sentenced. The vast majority are being held pretrial, and many will remain behind bars unless they can make bail. Charging pretrial defendants high prices for phone calls punishes people who are legally innocent, drives up costs for their appointed counsel, and makes it harder for them to contact family members and others who might help them post bail or build their defense. It also puts them at risk of losing their jobs, housing, and custody of their children while they are in jail awaiting trial.