With a finger in my ear, I say, "Hello, Hello, Dear."
Being encamped in a Men's prison is mentally taxing.
Trying to communicate via phone with your loved ones when you are hearing impaired in prison is mentally and financially taxing.
Some of my audience here in the USA may be aged enough to remember payphones, especially those outside of a phone booth. They were built with a hooded baffle to deflect a little sound from your neighbor's conversation if there were a bank of phones bolted to a wall.
Well... payphones in prison lack the baffles and the coin return that might bless you with a random quarter, but the rest of the hardware will look familiar. You walk up...
Pick up the receiver.
- For English, Press 1
- Para Español, Oprima 2
1
Please enter your booking ID and pass code, followed by the pound key.
(eleven buttons later, that's ridiculous, it's not even funny)
I'm in.
Unusual circumstance:
Here in this prison, we justice-impacted folk have the option to load money onto our account for calling our loved ones, or for our loved ones to load money on their end so we can always call them, specifically.
In state-run FDC facilities, the only option is for our loved ones to put money in an account so we can call them beyond the allotted 5-minute free weekly call we are given.
The Federal Communications Commission saw this setup for what it is, though: a racket, punishing callers coming and going.
If you set up an account on the outside with GTL/ViaPath, Securus, or one of the other prison phone services, then load the account with money, you in the free world were assessed fees just for giving these companies money to then pay for phone calls.
Then, the per-minute costs for phone calls are ridiculous in an era of unlimited minutes for $cheap per month cellphones. Here, it's 20¢/minute, meaning $1.00 is spent for a five minute phone call, and $6.00 for half an hour.
Chew on this for a minute: There are mobile carriers right now that will give you unlimited talk time plans for $5.00 plus taxes. Literally, talk all you want, when you want, for about what we pay for a thirty minute phone call to check on our loved ones.
It's you on the outside who were forced to pay these prices to make sure your son, your husband, your best friend, your fiancée, your aunt, whomever it is, can keep in contact with you. It's how you can help them hear that you love them.
The FCC did not like that. They agree that human communication is part of rehabilitation. Starting in 2025, phone rates for prison phone services will be capped, beautifully, at a rate of 6¢/minute for all prisons, and no more than 12¢/minute for most jails.
For us here in Florida, that is a 14¢/minute savings, which is phenomenal even for the few phone calls I do make.
For my cellie, that will save him a ridiculous sum of cash, for he calls home to his wife and kids, frequently, trying to stay a positive part of their lives. If my maths are even remotely close to accurate, a person that spends 40 minutes a day on the phone, five days a week stands to save $1,400 a year in talk time alone, never mind the banning of junk fees that were also banned by the FCC!
An oddball wish.
With us making a move to be closer to pricing parity with the free world, I would be happier if this also moved us closer to using our tablets as phones, with appropriate headsets.
It isn't a far fetched wish: County jails and prisons already make use of Securus and ViaPath's tablet services to allow phone calls in exactly this manner. When we make a purchase, Securus advertises to us the many features of their "Unity" tablet services through "Do-Overs With Danny".
Danny kindly reminds us, "This is your phone, to talk to your mom."
Features, of course, vary by agency.
It would be helpful if we had it, so I could place calls from the quiet of my shared cell when my cellie is out, but nah, half a payphone hanging from the wall is what we get.
You have ONE MINUTE remaining.
Overall, I am happy that the FCC is starting to look at companies that control prison calling like this. It gives me hope that Federal oversight can reel in some of the travesties visited upon the justice-impacted on both sides of the fences, wires, and walls.
I would wonder if the digital services these same companies offer us also fall under their purview, because I have a fair worry here:
Because phone calls are price capped, companies like ViaPath and Securus (two of the largest beasts that prowl behind these fences) will make up their lost revenue by inflating our prices for digital messaging, raising the cost of music even higher, gouging us further on movie rentals, and burning our funds on TV shows.
A 19¢ increase on an already pricey $1.51 or $1.97 song might not be noticed much at first...
A $8.29+tax movie? These people will think "Oh. Inflation, I guess" without connecting the dots.
There will be kvetching over the eMessage stamps if they go from an already expensive 39¢ for 6000 characters to a few cents higher, but this is one place where we can be hit with shrinkflation: they can limit us even more, to 5,500 characters for 39¢, and many wouldn't notice it here.
... Oh, that's just like jars of peanut butter in the free world, isn't it? Shave an ounce or two, keep the same price?
As I run out of characters, I can but ask that you all keep your eyes open and on the scene of the concertina wires, and stay involved in pushing for reforms. May we come to a day where rehabilitation doesn't require caging a human for 5, 10, 20 years or the rest of their life, and may it happen in this lifetime.
Signing off with metta,
-- Jayel