The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Prisons throughout the country charge incarcerated individuals and their families significantly higher rates to stay in touch over the phone than what they would pay for a typical phone call. This practice – which occurs in forty-two states – can result in calls being as much as twenty-four times higher than standard rates, forcing many families to choose between talking to an incarcerated loved one and paying for necessities like food or medication.

The Leadership Conference, along with other civil rights leaders, media reform advocates, and criminal justice activists, are working together to urge the FCC to address long distance rates, as well as set the stage for state action on local rates. A petition pending at the Federal Communications Commission since 2003 seeks a cap on long distance rates, among other things. The FCC’s grant of this petition would immediately impact long distance prison rates and would provide a strong impetus to the 42 states that have not yet acted to remedy their own local prison telephone rates.