The Biden FCC Needs to Tackle Exorbitant Jail and Prison Call Prices

A Biden Federal Communications Commission needs to tackle exorbitant jail and prison call prices: extending reform efforts to jails and intrastate communications, tackling exploitative video call contracts for the first time, and addressing the problems of fees and monopolistic bundled service provision in addition to fully dismantling the regressive commission system. Better yet, the commission would fully eliminate all charges for calls from any detention facility, acknowledging that speaking with our loved ones is a basic human need and that a system that profits off of making communication less attainable for millions of Americans makes none of us safer. The president- and vice president–elect both have spotty histories on incarceration and criminalization, but they have promised to champion the most progressive criminal justice reform of any administration in history. To keep their commitment and enact correctional communications reforms that already have bipartisan support, President-elect Joe Biden can secure an early win by appointing FCC commissioners who will put fixing the broken prison and jail communications system at the top of their agenda.

[Kiran Ambika is a freelance journalist]