FCC reversed prison phone rate caps under telecom lobby pressure

In 2024, the FCC capped prison phone calls at $0.06/minute and jail calls at $0.12/minute under the Martha Wright-Reed Act. But in 2025, the FCC reversed course after lobbying from sheriffs and prison telecom monopolies like Securus and ViaPath (formerly GTL), hiking caps by up to 83% -- to $0.10/minute in prisons and $0.18/minute in small jails. The people harmed are incarcerated individuals and their families, who rely on phone contact to maintain relationships that are proven to reduce recidivism. A $0.10/minute call sounds cheap until you realize incarcerated people earn $0.12-$0.40/hour; a 15-minute call costs more than an hour of prison labor wages. So families on the outside -- disproportionately low-income Black and Latino women -- absorb the cost, spending on average $500/year on calls alone. When families cannot afford calls, relationships deteriorate, children grow up without parental contact, and recidivism rises because the single strongest predictor of successful reentry is maintained family ties. This persists because only two companies (Securus and ViaPath) control roughly 80% of the prison telecom market, and they pay 'site commissions' (kickbacks) to corrections departments -- sometimes 40-60% of revenue -- creating a perverse incentive for facilities to choose the most expensive provider.