Legislation Introduced to Restore Face to Face Family Visits in New Jersey Jails
Advocates Applaud Legislators Call for Reduced Cost for those Incarcerated and their Families

For Immediate Release, December 8, 2016 Contact: Karina Wilkinson, [email protected]

Trenton, NJ – Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Bergen) introduced legislation this week to guarantee face to face family visits for individuals incarcerated in New Jersey. The bill, A4389, would cap costs at 11 cents per minute, ban commissions, require refunds for poor quality and ban fees on professional visits from lawyers and clergy. Similar legislation governing phone rates in prisons and jails was signed into law in August, 2016.

“We applaud Assemblyman Johnson for taking the lead on ensuring that people incarcerated in New Jersey and their families are not taken advantage of by an unregulated industry that is only interested in profits and counties that are looking to gain revenue off of those who can least afford it,” said Karina Wilkinson of the New Jersey Phone Justice Campaign (NJPhoneJustice.org). “We also welcome Congresswoman Duckworth’s efforts at the federal level to require the FCC to regulate video visitation.”

Also this week, Congresswoman Duckworth (IL-8) introduced federal legislation, the Video Visitation in Prisons Act of 2016, that would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate video visitation services, including capping rates, ensuring quality and banning the elimination of in-person visits.

Read more here.

Today’s press release from Senator Booker and Congressman Rush:

Sen. Booker and Rep. Rush Introduce Concurrent Resolution to Address Prison Reform and Changes to Exorbitant Prison Phone Rates

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 8, 2016
Contact:
Jeff Giertz (Booker), [email protected]
Debra Johnson (Rush), [email protected]

WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and U.S. Representative Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.)introduced a Concurrent Resolution to address exorbitant prison phone rates between the imprisoned and their loved ones.

“Implementing fair and reasonable prison phone rates is the right thing to do and plain common sense. This resolution supports recent efforts by the FCC to protect those serving their time and their families from exorbitant and unfounded calling fees imposed on some of America’s most financially fragile households. These excessive fees are not only baseless attempts to profit off of vulnerable families, they undermine the financial security of those trying to stay in touch with a partner, parent, or child behind bars. In addition, excessive fees on inmate calls can pose a substantial barrier to successful reentry once individuals have paid their debt to society. That debt should not include paying excessive fees per minute to speak with your child, ” Sen. Booker said.

“For last decade, I have sought to end the ‘family divide,’ a term analogous to the ‘digital divide’ that exists with regard to unequal access to communication services between incarcerated members of our society and their loved ones,” said Rep. Rush. “I firmly believe that communication, along with the ability to express love toward family, is a fundamental need, and one’s humanity does not perish when they enter the prison system.”

Although this is an issue that affects families from all backgrounds (over 2.7 million children in the United States have at least one parent in prison), more than 60 percent of incarcerated prisoners are African- or Latino-American. In addition, many prison offenders come from economically vulnerable communities where unreasonable prison phone rates severely harm and exploit prison populations.

Research proves that there is a significant decline in recidivism rates for inmates who communicate with family members while incarcerated compared to those who do not. Expensive phone call rates deter such communication and result in costly re-incarceration. Scores of states receive hundreds of millions of dollars in commissions from companies to land exclusive contracts to provide prison phone services without facing competition from other lower-cost providers; a possible reason for why prison phone call rates have skyrocketed. Bloomberg reports the lucrative market for prison phone services, which totals approximately $1.2 billion dollars in annual revenues, is currently dominated by two companies, Global Tel Link and Securus Technologies.

Ensuring that prison phone rates are adjusted to reasonable levels will not only increase affordability of service for families, but will also help keep families intact as much as possible while reducing recidivism.

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