There are unintended consequences of the FCC Rule Limiting Jail/Prison Phone Call Rates to $.07 a minute. In Hernando County, this change will lead to the loss of services for prisoners. Currently, the Hernando County jail makes $450,000 off charging $.18 a minute for prisoner voice or video calls.
These funds are put into programs that support 3.5 positions providing inmate services, including reentry specialists, GED instructors, and visitation clerks. The FCC also does not allow profits to be made off the phone charges. Without the profits from the phone calls, the cost of the services will either need to be borne by the taxpayers or the programs will have to be curtailed.
The FCC changes were at least partially in response to media coverage of some of the most egregious phone rates that were being charged to the prisoners. The rates in some jails were as high as $2.25 a minute for video calls which seems exploitive.
There were also some jails that were run by private companies which took the money made off the phone calls as part of their profits. That in some cases these funds were used by the jails to provide programs for the prisoners was ignored by most of the reporting.
The FCC reacted to these reports of exploitive behavior significantly lowering the maximum rates to $.07 a minute. The old phone maximum rate was $.22 a minute.
The Hernando county jail contract with the phone service provider stipulates that the jail receives 70 percent of the $.17 a minute phone call proceeds.
The FCC changes will have unintended consequences on the inmates and families that they are attempting to protect. A likely outcome will be the cutting of essential services that prisoners rely on. The Oklahoma attorney general has stated that they intend to sue to block the changes because of their unintended consequences.
