Reduced prison phone call rates that benefited incarcerated Oklahomans and their families from February through August are unlikely to return.
The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 on Oct. 28 to roll back the 6-cent-per-minute rate cap on prison phone calls it enacted in July 2024. Phone calls from prisons will now be capped at 11 cents per minute, with up to 2 cents per minute going to corrections officials to pay for call monitoring. Rate caps at county jails will depend on the facility’s population.
At the request of an unnamed service provider, the FCC also approved a 6.7% inflation adjustment, meaning the final rate could rise to 12 cents per minute.
Prison and jail officials will have 120 days to comply with the order once it is published in the Federal Register. That usually happens within four weeks of the meeting date.
Oklahoma prisoners and their families have been paying 14 cents per minute for calls since Sept. 1, when the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and Securus Technologies took advantage of an FCC enforcement waiver to more than double call rates. The 6-cent-per-minute rate was in effect from late February through August.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who voted for the 6-cent-per-minute cap as a commissioner last year, championed the rate increase. He said the higher rates are necessary to ensure that prison and jail staff can adequately monitor calls.
“Those rules have resulted in serious unintended consequences,” Carr said following the vote. “For example, by limiting how facilities could recover safety and facility costs, some prisons or jails were forced to scale back or even stop offering calling services altogether.”
A handful of county jail officials, most notably the sheriff in Baxter County, Arkansas, cited the FCC rate cap rules in their decision to eliminate phone service. But advocates argue such reactions were isolated, and there is little data to support the claim that prison and jail officials were cash-strapped at the previous rate cap. A handful of states, including New York, California and Minnesota, even offer free phone calls for prisoners.
Maureen Hunt relies on prison phone calls to communicate with her husband, Terry, a prisoner at the Joseph Harp Correctional Center in Lexington. She said she was caught off guard by the news, expecting that the FCC would take more time to consider public feedback on the matter.
After the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and Securus abruptly raised prices in September, Hunt wrote to the FCC asking it to enforce the previous rate cap.
“It’s really disheartening that they would fast-track this like that and put that new cap in for good,” Hunt said.
“That goes completely against the intent of the law,” she said, referencing the Martha Reed Just and Fair Communications Act that Congress passed in 2022.
Last week’s FCC decision wasn’t all positive for the Department of Corrections. A sweeping ban on commissions and in-kind payments for calls will return, meaning the agency will have to give up the $312,500 monthly site access fee it has received from Securus since September. The money goes towards inmate programs and services, according to the agency.
Securus will also not be allowed to offer the state several in-kind security services, as is outlined in the most recent contract amendment. However, the FCC has indicated a willingness to reconsider the kickback ban.
While the anticipated 2026 call rate will be lower than previous years, Hunt said the timing couldn’t be worse for incarcerated people and their loved ones. She said rising costs for other services, such as vending machine food at visits, continue to put a strain on families.
“It’s not a safety issue,” Hunt said. “It’s about making family members pay for their loved ones’ incarceration.”
