Prisons Pout, Cancel Inmate Calls After Biden FCC Caps Precatory Inmate Phone Rates

I think the Biden FCC under the leadership of Jessica Rosenworcel engaged in a lot of regulatory theater that made for good press clippings, but was ultimately hollow. While indisputably better than the corrupt and bizarre authoritarian zealotry we’re seeing now under Brendan Carr, the Biden FCC routinely failed to take direct aim at the obvious cause of problems in telecom: consolidated monopoly power.

There was one major and useful exception: last year the agency finally put a cap on predatory family-to-inmate phone calls by shitty, predatory prison telecom monopolies. At least one prison in Arkansas has responded this year by cancelling all prison phone calls entirely:

“Sheriff John Montgomery of Baxter County, Arkansas, isn’t going to take it anymore—if by “it” you mean “having to offer lower phone call rates to incarcerated inmates.” Noting that such phone calls are “not required to be provided by law,” Montgomery is ending all inmate phone calls on March 30, 2025.”

In a press release, Montgomery says he knows the action will hurt prison families, but says he’ll restore inmate calling if the Trump administration rescinds the price caps, which I suspect is likely. Private prisons are expecting a lucrative windfall under authoritarianism for historically obvious reasons.

However terrible telecom monopolies are in the free world, they’re arguably much worse in prisons. For decades, journalists and researchers outlined how prison telecom giants like Securus have enjoyed a cozy, government-kickback based monopoly over prison phone and teleconferencing services, resulting sky high rates (upwards of $14 per minute at some prisons) for families.

Reforms have been hard to come by thanks to the “iff’n ya don’t want to get ripped off, don’t go to prison” yuk yuk brigades. Last year’s regulatory win was a decade-plus-long effort.

Most of these pampered monopolies have shifted over to monopolizing prison phone videoconferencing. And the relationship between government and monopoly is so cozy, several of these companies, like Securus, have been caught helping to spy on privileged attorney client communications or abusing overbroad wireless company location data collection.

Previous efforts to rein in prison monopolies were undermined by the Trump FCC and former FCC boss Ajit Pai, who worked for prison phone giant Securus before his time at the agency. Trump and Pai pulled the rug out from under the agencies own lawyers’ feet while they were trying to defend their efforts in court, resulting in a legal loss, which dismantled broader reforms.

I suspect in time that Brendan Carr, when he’s not busy bullying media companies for failing to kiss Trump’s ass, or harassing telecom companies for not being quite racist enough, likely has similar plans in store for prison price caps as part of his broader effort to lobotomize whatever’s left of FCC consumer and fair market protection standards.

Carr actually supported price caps on prison telecom monopoly calling last year. But you can’t have your cake (dismantle the entirety of FCC authority over telecoms) and eat it too (stand up to concentrated monopoly power), and I expect his mindless devotion to manbaby authoritarianism will doom this and countless other rare FCC efforts to actually do the right thing.