NATIONAL — Late last week, YesCare, one of the nation's largest providers of correctional healthcare, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in just three years, following a $307 million jury verdict for medical neglect last month. The filing is the latest in a wave of bankruptcies by major carceral healthcare contractors, including Wellpath, Armor Correctional Health, and YesCare's predecessor Corizon Health.

NATIONAL — Today, Worth Rises released a landmark report, Critical Connections: The Power of Free Communication in Prisons and Jails, providing the first systematic, data-driven evaluation of the impact of the national policy campaign to make prison and jail communication free. 

Nationwide, 330,000 incarcerated people, and their families, now have access to fully free phone calls and, in some cases, other types of communication services like video calls or emails. Analyzing data from six prison systems and more than a dozen local jails, the report shows that free communication fundamentally transforms individual rehabilitation, family stability, facility operations, and public safety — while exposing the harm caused by the $1.5 billion correctional telecom industry that has profited from preying on the human need for connection.

HARTFORD, CT — In a resounding bipartisan victory for human rights and public health, the Connecticut Senate today passed HB 5567, a comprehensive bill that tackles a longstanding humanitarian crisis that has long plagued Connecticut’s prisons, where systemic medical failures have led to preventable injuries and deaths. Following a landslide 148-2 vote in the House on April 29, 2026, the legislation now heads to Governor Lamont’s desk for signature. He is expected to sign the bill into law.

NATIONAL — A new campaign launched today calls on non-profits, foundations, and other values-based institutions to steer away from The Vanguard Group due to its major investments in private prison corporations that profit from immigrant detention and deportation.

BALTIMORE, MD — National advocacy organization Worth Rises has filed a petition for clarification and rehearing with the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC), urging the PSC to closely scrutinize the proposed ownership transfer of Securus Technologies

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, in a split 2-1 vote, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed revised rate caps for Incarcerated People’s Communication Services (IPCS), rolling back unanimously passed 2024 regulations that had finally set just and reasonable rate caps based on more than a decades-long record. The 2025 revised rate caps will deliver substantially less financial relief to families impacted by incarceration — at least $215 million less per year.

NEW YORK, USA, AND NIJMEGEN, NETHERLANDS — Today, the Swiss National Contact Point (NCP) for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a Final Statement on a complaint concerning Swiss-based UBS and its ongoing business links to U.S. private prison corporations CoreCivic and GEO Group, particularly those established through the bank’s passive investments. In the statement, the Swiss NCP reveals that, in an unprecedented move, UBS — alongside UK-based HSBC and Barclays, also named in the complaint — declined to participate in mediation with the complainants, civil society organizations BankTrack and Worth Rises, despite an initial assessment by the body that found the groups’ assertions had merit.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Worth Rises released the first impact analysis of the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed revisions to the agency’s 2024 regulations on incarcerated people’s communications services. 

WASHINGTON — Today, nearly 100 civil rights and advocacy organizations representing individuals and communities across the country submitted a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioners Anna Gomez and Olivia Trusty, calling on the Commission to overturn the Wireline Competition Bureau’s June 30 Suspension Order. The order suspends critical protections guaranteed by the bipartisan Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act to lower price caps on prison phone calls. 

WASHINGTON — Yesterday, a coalition of public interest groups including UCC Media Justice Ministry, Worth Rises, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and others filed an Application for Review urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to overturn a recent decision by the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau that suspends the 2024 FCC rules to lower price caps on prison phone calls.