Today, a group of formerly incarcerated New Jersey residents, their families, and community organizations join together to file a petition with the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU), asking the Board to lower the cost of phone calls from prisons, jails, and other correctional facilities in New Jersey. The petition comes in the wake of a Federal Communication Commission (FCC) rule, implemented in February 2014, which caps the cost of out-of-state calls from correctional facilities but leaves in-state calls unregulated. The petition argues that “high phone rates lead to numerous negative effects for vulnerable families across the state,” and asks the BPU to ensure that phone companies cannot unfairly profit off people in New Jersey.

The final petition is available here, and the supporting documents are available here.

A press release is available here.

Join us for a press conference & rally as we demand justice for vulnerable families burdened by the high cost of phone calls in New Jersey’s prisons and jails. We will be marking the historic filing of a NJ phone justice petition and calling upon the state to take action.  The press conference & rally will take place at 1:00pm on Wednesday, April 30, 2014, on the steps of the New Jersey Statehouse (125 W. State St, Trenton, NJ 08608). 

For more information and/or to let us know that you’ll be there, please contact us at [email protected] or [email protected].

See you in Trenton!

The Bergen Record reported today on the impact of the FCC’s Order lowering interstate phone rates from New Jersey prisons and county jails. The Record reports that Global Tel*Link offered Bergen County the opportunity to negotiate increases on other rates and fees to make up for the losses on interstate calls. The story featured quotes from Karina Wilkinson and Pauline Ndzie, members of the campaign for prison phone justice, and emphasized the hardship caused by exorbitant phone rates. Read the full article here.

As of March 4, 2014 the New Jersey Department of Corrections extended its contract for prison phone services with Global Tel*Link for an additional six months (until September 3, 2014). It also lowered the rate for all phone calls to 17 cents per minute during that period. This decrease is great news, but the rate should go even lower! At the same time, intrastate rates and commissions in county jails remain high.

The contract extension is available here.

Yesterday’s changes in the phone rates for New Jersey prisons and jails will have an immediate impact, especially on immigrant detainees held in New Jersey who are in the custody of New York Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The rates are still nowhere near comparable to New York rates of less than 5 cents per minute, but the state adopted a flat rate of 19 cents, just below the FCC maximum rate and eliminated commissions for prisons. The county jails can still take commissions on intrastate calls, and their exorbitant in-state rates remain in place.

See the documents confirming the change in rates for state prisons here and county jails here.

State officials lower phone rates for NJ inmates

By Naomi Nix/The Star-Ledger

on February 12, 2014 at 7:00 AM, updated February 12, 2014 at 7:06 AM

The cost of making a phone call to mom or dad from behind bars just got a whole lot cheaper.

State officials lowered the price of making local and long-distance phone calls from state prisons from 33 cents a minute to 19 cents a minute to comply with new Federal Communications Commission regulations.

The new rate, which went into effect Tuesday, follows a decade-long campaign by activists around the United States who urged the FCC to regulate phone service companies they say were charging exorbitant rates to inmates and their loved ones.

“Although the wheels of justice often turn slowly, relief for families of inmates has finally arrived,” the FCC commissioners said in a statement. “This means that many families will no longer have to choose between talking to their loved ones in prison and paying their utility bills.”

New Jersey inmates in county jails that have contracts with Global Tel Link, the state’s main correctional facility phone service provider, will also see lower rates for out-of-state calls.

It will now cost 21 cents a minute to make prepaid or debit calls and 25 cents a minute for collect calls to someone outside of New Jersey, according to the state treasury department. Counties will also no longer be allowed to take commissions for out-of-state calls, the department said.

Global Tel Link’s contract with the state expires later this year, which means the rates could change again. A bidding process for a new contract began in November.

The FCC started to explore the possibility of regulating the industry in 2003, after a woman complained to the commission that it was too expensive to call her grandson in jail.

Last August, the FCC declared that the “just” rate for out-of-state calls was 12 cents per minute for debit and prepaid calls and 14 cents per minute for collect calls. The commission also capped out-of-state rates at 21 cents and 25 cents per minute for debit and collect calls, respectively.

But late last year, the phone companies filed a complaint in federal court in the District of Columbia seeking a review of the FCC’s order.

The new FCC regulations still allow counties to charge higher rates for in-state calls and take commissions. And New Jersey inmates in different counties who are served by the same phone company are still charged widely different rates.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2014/02/fcc_commission_order_to_lower_phone_rates_for_nj_inmates.html

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

January 14, 2014

Contact: Karina Wilkinson, NJAID, [email protected]

Alix Nguefack, AFSC, (973) 854-0401

New Jersey Advocates Look Forward to Decrease in Prison Phone Rates

Newark, NJ – The New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees (NJAID) applaud Monday’s decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to allow the implementation of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s Order capping interstate rates from prisons and jails to go forward. Beginning on February 11, 2014, the Order will limit rates on calls between states to $3.15 for a fifteen-minute debit call and $3.75 for a fifteen-minute collect call. The Court granted phone companies’ motion to delay several provisions of the Order, including provisions requiring prison phone rates to be cost-based and setting presumptively fair “safe harbor” rates. The New Jersey Advocates anticipate that upon review the Court will uphold these provisions, along with the rest of the Order.

“The implementation of hard caps on interstate prison phone rates will provide much-needed relief to immigrant detainees and other incarcerated people, along with their families,” said Karina Wilkinson, Co-Founder of the Monmouth County Coalition for Immigrant Rights, a member group of the New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees. “Currently, New Jersey state correctional facilities and county jails charge rates that exceed the FCC maximum, with some reaching over $15 for a fifteen-minute call.”

Bergen and Hudson Counties detain hundreds of immigrants who are in the custody of the New York office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Affordable phone calls to their lawyers and families in New York make detainees more likely to win their cases and better able to re-integrate into their community upon return,” said Roberto Concepción, Associate Counsel at Latino Justice PRLDEF.

Nonetheless, phone rates within New Jersey remain unregulated. After the Order goes into effect calls from New Jersey prisons and jails other than local calls will be more expensive than calls to other states. “New Jersey should follow the FCC’s lead,” said Alix Nguefack, Detention Project Coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee’s Immigrant Rights Program in Newark. “The state Board of Public Utilities or the legislature should cap intrastate rates so that they do not go above interstate rates.”

NJAID advocates to end immigration detention and for improved conditions for those in detention, including lower phone rates for immigrants held in New Jersey. For more information about NJAID and to read our comments on the FCC’s Order, visit www.njphonejustice.org.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted a partial stay of the Federal Communications Commisson (FCC)’s Order regulating interstate prison and jail phone rates. That means that sections of the Order requiring that rates be cost-based, setting presumptively fair “safe harbor rates,” and imposing reporting requirements on companies will not go into effect until the Court rules on them. However, the part of the Order that caps interstate rates at 21 cents per minute for debit calls and 25 cents per minute for collect calls remains intact. All New Jersey prisons and jails will have to lower their rates to comply with those caps by February 11, 2014.

Read the partial stay here.

The FCC closed the public comment period on intrastate prison phone rates on December 20, 2013. We submitted the comments below and our New Jersey phone rates chart was included as Exhibit B (p.27) in the comments of the national advocacy groups representing Martha Wright, et al.

NJAID IRC Comment FCC Docket No. 12-375

National Comments on Intrastate Phone Rates by Advocates for Martha Wright

Reply comments can be submitted on the FCC website until January 13, 2014. Sending your comments is easy – just go to the FCC website page for submitting comments and click on “Submit a Filing” (if you want to upload a Word document) or “Submit a Filing (Express)” (if you want to just type a brief set of comments in) and reference Proceeding Number 12-375.

You can also look up other comments from the phone companies and others at the same docket number to see if there is anything you would like to reply to there.