The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) signed onto a letter, with a broad coalition of digital and civil rights organizations, calling on Congress to protect incarcerated people’s access to basic communications technology — and their connections with their loved ones and family members.
Incarcerated people have long been subject to monopoly pricing for basic telephone service, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been curtailed in its efforts to regulate exorbitant rates; consequently, some unregulated rates have peaked as high as $24.80 for a fifteen minute call.
CDT joins its partners in calling on Congress to pass the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act to ensure that incarcerated people are not severed from their families and communities.