IPCS Providers and Advocacy Groups Disagree on FCC's Prison-Calling Draft
Advocates for incarcerated people, corrections trade groups and prison-calling companies disagree about the FCC’s draft order on incarcerated people’s communications services (IPCS), according to filings last week in docket 23-62. Thirty-five House Democrats panned the item in a letter (see 2510220049) and advocacy group FWD.us said the proposed rule would increase rate caps by up to 83%, “is based on misleading information, and unfairly shifts facility costs onto the families of incarcerated people.” Securus, meanwhile, said the rule revisions in the draft “make considerable progress towards placing IPCS on a sustainable path, both economically and legally, a critical outcome to all stakeholders.”
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The draft item, which is on the agenda for the FCC's meeting Tuesday, would set interim caps for calls that account for the safety and security costs to correctional facilities and IPCS providers for offering the service. It would also seek comment on other proposed changes to the agency's IPCS rules. In June, the Wireline Bureau delayed several IPCS deadlines that would have led to lower call rates, based in part on some facilities' plans to stop providing phone service if the deadlines went into effect (see 2507310049). An FCC official told us Friday that the draft item is still being negotiated on the 10th floor and could change before it's finalized Tuesday.
“There is little, if any, evidence that facilities incur used and useful costs for IPCS that are unique to IPCS rather than the cost of running a carceral facility,” said a filing from the Brattle Group and Wright petitioners’ representatives. The FCC’s basis for increasing the rates is a survey that's more than a decade old, they said. “It is unclear how such costs are related to the provision of IPCS or why consumers should be paying the salaries and benefits of facilities’ officers and employees to make a phone call.”
However, the American Jail Association said in its ex parte filing that the FCC’s category for the costs of providing IPCS should recognize “the full set of mandated and reasonable costs that jails incur to provide secure and compliant communications. These costs include security integration and monitoring, investigative holds and evidentiary preservation, crisis intervention and suicide prevention checks tied to communications activity, accessibility obligations such as TTY and captioning, language access, indigent communications, device management, training, and technology hardening against fraud and contraband.”
FWD.us said family members making less than $25,000 per year spent on average $3,830 to stay in touch with their incarcerated relatives. That's “a staggeringly high percentage of their own income,” the group said. “People who are already struggling to buy groceries should not suddenly face a choice between talking to their parents or spouses and paying their electricity bill this winter.”
IPCS providers NCIC Correctional Services and Securus said in separate filings that the draft order should be changed to increase the rates even further. The proposed rate caps “remain too low, and would not permit NCIC to recover its costs to provide service in small jails,” the company said. Securus argued that the FCC should adjust the rate caps because they “are based on costs reported in 2022 and do not account for the inflation that has occurred since that time.” It also called for changes to the agency’s rounding policy for rates and its process for calculating debt in setting rates. “These changes, particularly as it relates to inflation, are necessary to ensure that the rate caps reflect their actual costs of providing IPCS.”
In addition, the Wright representatives said the draft item shouldn’t seek comment on allowing correctional facilities to impose ancillary charges on calls or on reopening the prohibition on site commissions. “Allowing providers to charge additional fees is not supported by the record and could result in duplicative charges that are unjust and unreasonable in violation of the [2022 Martha Wright-Reed Act].”
But NCIC said the FCC should reinstate ancillary service charges on IPCS calls. “The continued prohibition on all Ancillary Service Charges is in direct conflict with the FCC’s decision to ensure that IPCS providers are able to recover the cost of making IPCS available to incarcerated persons and their families.”