FCC Expected to Cap Prison Rates Today
Phone
calls to and from prison punish the prisoner and the family and
friends of the prisoner.
So
we send a man or woman to prison and then flog them further with
phone rates that the average American would refuse to pay?
Virginia
is a business friendly state. But it is not a human friendly state.
Virginia is not for lovers; Virginia is for rapacious looters of the
public purse and of the poor.
Va
legislators ought to give more thought to the families and friends of
prisoners and less to their pocketbooks and their
state-sponsored-healthcare.
Virginia
ranks 48th among 50 states for the cost of prison phone
rates. Click here for a survey of the rates and charges.
The
low ranking doesn't mean cheap rates. Nor does it mean equitable
rates. What it means is a hefty profit for the two firms – Global
Tel-Link Corporation and Securus Technologies – that dominate the
market for calls to and from prisons across America.
Global
Tel Link, or GTEL, according to PrisonPhoneJustice.org, a prisoner
advocacy group, has the contract for state, regional and local jails
in Virginia.
The
firm's website says it is a “Corrections Innovation Leader.”
and its
Facebook page implies that it backs reform of prison phone rates.
The
firm's lobbyist, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, is
the law firm of Maguire Woods, based in Richmond. Among the firm's
registered lobbyists representing Global Tel-Link is Jerry Gilgore, a
Republican, and former Attorney General of Virginia from 2002 to
2005. Kilgore is one of the firm's managing partners.
In
the race for governor against Tim Kaine, Kilgore was criticized for
an ad in which Hitler and death row were mentioned. The ad, condemned
by the World Jewish Congress, galvanized voters for Kaine.
The
ad featured a father whose son had been murdered by a man who was
on Virginia's death row; the father expressed doubt that the sentence
would be carried out if Kaine were elected and alleged that Kaine
would not even have authorized the execution of Adolf Hitler, based
on an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Norfolk
Sheriff Robert McCabe and Virginia Beach Sheriff Ken Stolle have
received campaign donations from the firm, according to the Virginia
Public Access Project.
Delegate
Patrick A. Hope, a democrat, introduced a bill to curb this abuse
during the last General Assembly session.
The
measure, HB 1403, would have capped commissions paid to Virginia
generated by phone rates on calls to and from the state's prisons and
jails. Only the Federal Communications Commission can cap telephone
rates.
Under
the bill, money raised from the commissions would have been funneled
to the state's Prisoner Reentry Fund, which helps prisoners deal with
life outside prison. The bill was left in the House Appropriations
Committee.
The
Federal Communications Commission is expected to cap the price of
phone calls to and from prison in a meeting today.
Contracts
phone rates are rife with commissions, or kickbacks – money phone
companies usually pay prisons to win exclusive phone service
contracts.
According
to PrisonPhoneJustice.org, GTEL paid $3.4 million in kickbacks in
Virginia in 2014. The advocacy group publishes the rates and
agreements on its website.
A
dozen democratic Senators have endorsed the FCC's proposed order to
cap phone rates.
Under
the order, the majority of prison inmates would not be charged more
than 11 cents per minute for any call, a more than 50 percent cut
from the current cap on interstate calls, according to an article by
The Hill, a US political website.