The FCC voted 2 to 1, over the eloquent and detailed dissent of Commissioner Gomez, to increase rates paid by incarcerated people their families and loved ones by even more than originally proposed. This change gives even more to greedy monopoly phone companies while ransoming vulnerable communities to pad carceral facility budgets for costs unrelated to communications.
The most dramatic and unwelcome news at the meeting was the announcement that, in the week before the vote and outside of the public eye, the Chair’s office added an inflation factor to the rates adopted in today’s vote. The inflation factor will increase rates above the levels announced earlier this month, and will continue to increase rates going forward.
Cheryl A. Leanza, UCC Media Justice’s policy advisor, said, “just when you think the craven acquiescence to the corrupt carceral communications industry can’t get any worse, the FCC comes up with an even more harmful and unjustifiable decision. Today’s vote will cost ordinary consumers hundreds of millions of dollars. While most ordinary Americans are paying higher prices under the Trump Administration’s inflationary policies, the Trump FCC put the burden of inflation squarely in the backs of clergy and grandparents holding their families and communities together. The findings and the record just do not hold up.”
FCC Chair Brendan Carr continued to cite incorrect claims that jails were stopping all communications because if the FCC’s 2024 rate caps. When asked in a post-meeting press conference to describe the evidence, Carr vaguely responded “there’s a lot” without addressing the record which shows the FCC’s conclusions are incorrect.
Commissioner Gomez spoke out about the terrible human impact of increased rates, and also described in technical detail the problems with the order. In particular, the new FCC rules reward companies and carceral facilities that held back data, favored companies and carceral facilities over consumers and adopted an inflationary adjustment at the last minute with no notice. As Gomez explained, many of the policies reversed today were adopted unanimously last year with no change in the evidence in the agency’s record.
The vote was received with strong opposition on Capitol Hill. Senator Duckworth and Representatives Barragan and Clarke led letters denouncing the decision, they were joined by 12 Senators, including Minority Leader Schumer and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Cantwell, and 33 representatives, respectively.
Advocates attended the meeting in person, holding signs of protest. While early in the meeting the signs were visible in the FCC’s live video feed of the meeting, as the meeting went on, the FCC camera angles changed so the signs were obscured.
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