Over the years PLN has reported extensively on the ACA and NCCHC, and the “accreditation” scams they run using taxpayer money to promote mass incarceration and the prison industry. They are not alone; many other groups like the American Jail Association and National Sheriffs’ Association represent the interests of those ...
Criminologist Jonathan Simon refers to prisons as human toxic waste dumps where the ruling class dumps its human waste: out of sight and out of mind. Sadly, toxic waste is not just a literary analogy when discussing American prisons and jails. As PLN has reported for several decades, and this ...
Welcome to the 26th anniversary issue of Prison Legal News! I would like to thank all the people around the country who have helped PLN and the Human Rights Defense Center grow and prosper over the past 26 years. This includes all of our subscribers, readers, funders, advertisers, book purchasers, ...
Recent decades have seen the rise of not only private, for-profit prisons but also the privatization of other aspects of corrections systems, most notably the provision of medical care. As with prison privatization, the only people who have benefited are the owners of and investors in the companies. Everyone else ...
One downside of publishing a magazine like Prison Legal News for 26 years is that in some respects we are not covering a one-off or isolated story but rather are reporting an ongoing and developing issue. This month’s cover story about the epic abuse, corruption and brutality in the Los ...
For the past 26 years PLN has reported on conditions within the Florida Department of Corrections that have generally ranged from horrible to abysmal in a system long characterized by medical neglect, brutality, corruption and murder by prison officials, and long-time indifference or outright hostility by the governor and legislature. ...
From the Editor
by Paul Wright
Welcome to the first issue of PLN for 2016 as we enter our 26th year of continuous publishing. This month’s cover story about the rise of mass incarceration is something of a road map to how we got to where we are now. To ...
From the Editor
by Paul Wright
With the holidays upon us, people outside of prison often think of holiday meals as times of joy and thankfulness for what they have in their lives. Where a shared meal around a dinner table with family and friends is viewed as a time ...
From the Editor
by Paul Wright
As this issue of PLN goes to press the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced that on October 22, 2015, they will be issuing rules regulating all prison and jail telephone calls, including setting rate caps for debit and prepaid calls of $.11 per minute at prisons and $.14 to $.22 per minute at jails, plus banning most ancillary fees, among other reforms. We will report the details in an upcoming issue of PLN.
The critical point is that after the prison phone issue has languished on its docket for 12 years, the FCC has acted. In 2011, the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), which publishes Prison Legal News, founded the Campaign for Prison Phone Justice with the Center for Media Justice and Working Narratives, with the goal of reducing the cost of prison and jail telephone calls. We are proud that has finally happened, and we would like to thank all of our readers and supporters over the past four years who have donated to and supported our efforts. The FCC also announced it will be revisiting prison phone issues within the next two years.
But more work remains to be ...
October 23, 2015
From HRDC executive director Paul Wright:
Yesterday the Federal Communications Commission took a historic step by capping the cost of prison and jail phone calls. For decades, prisoners and their families have been ruthlessly exploited by telecom companies and their government collaborators who monetize human contact and want people to pay as much as possible to communicate with their loved ones in prison. Since 1992 the Human Rights Defense Center has been in the vanguard challenging these exploitive practices and seeking to end them. In 2011 we co-founded the Campaign for Prison Phone Justice, with the express goal of getting the FCC to end abusive phone rates for prisoners and their families. We have poured thousands of staff hours into the Campaign, as well as many trips to DC to meet with FCC staff, and it paid off.
The FCC action significantly reduces the cost of prison phone calls to no more than $.11 per minute and also reduces the cost of calls made from jails. It bans all but three ancillary fees charged by the telecom industry to bolster their profit margins and bottom lines. Most of the reforms will go into effect within 90 days ...
