News

Verizon Terminates Collect Call Access for Federal Prisoners

On April 22, Verizon implemented a service change in which its landline customers are no longer allowed to accept collect calls from inmates confined within the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Federal inmates were notified of this new policy through an April 17 notice posted to the Inmate Bulletin Board system on TRULINCS computers. This follows

Read More »

Taping Inmate-Lawyer Conferences Stirs Outrage at Kansas Prison

It began last year during an investigation of contraband smuggling into the Leavenworth Detention Center, a privately run federal prison in Kansas operated by CoreCivic, formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America. During that investigation, a federal prosecutor in Kansas City told a private defense lawyer she could not lawfully represent a Leavenworth inmate,

Read More »

Prison Phone Battles Wage On

There’s a storm brewing in the prison-industrial complex. It’s been simmering for decades, but a lawsuit was recently launched by inmates and families in Virginia against Global Tel*Link (GTL) sees it set to boil over as inmates and their families have grown tired of paying the price for the wages of a corporate war. The

Read More »

Prison Phone Justice Campaign: Recent Developments

By Prison Legal News

PLN’s December 2013 cover story provided an updated look at the prison phone industry and examined a recent order by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that imposed rate caps on interstate (long distance) prison and jail phone calls. There have since been several new developments on the prison phone front.

As previously reported, the nation’s two largest Inmate Calling Service (ICS) providers, Global Tel*Link and Securus Technologies, filed legal challenges to the FCC’s order in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

On January 13, 2014, the appellate court ruled on Securus’ motion for a stay of the FCC’s order, granting the motion in part and denying it in part. As a result, several key provisions of the order were placed on hold pending the outcome of Securus’ lawsuit.

The interim rate caps imposed by the FCC – $.25 per minute for collect interstate ICS calls and $.21 per minute for debit and prepaid interstate ICS calls – were not stayed and went into effect on February 11, 2014. As of that date, all correctional facilities nationwide were required to comply with the rate caps.

In addition to the rate caps for interstate prison phone calls, the D.C. Circuit also declined to stay a provision of the FCC’s order related to a prohibition on billing-related call blocking.

Read More »
Search
Categories
Categories
Archives
X