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.

Key Findings:

The weighted average phone call rate across all prisons is currently $0.049 per minute, lower than the 2024 rate cap of $0.06 per minute and not even half of the revised 2025 rate cap of $0.11 per minute.
Only three states — Florida, Kentucky, and Oklahoma — currently have rates above the newly proposed rate cap. In fact, 94% of prison systems are at or below the revised rate cap, and 76% of prison systems would already be compliant with the 2024 rate cap today. In fact, roughly a dozen state prison systems had already complied with the 2024 regulations before the FCC paused implementation; and despite the pause, the majority have maintained their new lower rates.
Under the 2024 rules, 45 prison systems would have been impacted; under the latest FCC’s revisions, that number falls to just 19 prison systems — less than half. As a result, the portion of the prison population that will experience relief drops from 78% to 42%, meaning that 446,000 fewer people in prison, and their families, will benefit.
The 2025 proposed revisions will deliver substantially less financial relief to families (39%), or $215 million less each year. While the largest drop is felt by those in prisons (49%), the drop is still significant for people in the largest and smallest jails (29% in jails over 1,000, 27% in jails over 350, and 27% in jails under 50).
The proposed revisions will severely dampen the increase in communication that sits at the center of the intent to regulate industry, from 2.1 billion additional call minutes a year under the 2024 rules to just 714 million under the 2025 revised rules, a drop of 66%.

Alongside the new data analysis, Worth Rises Executive Director Bianca Tylek released the following statement:

“Under the new rules, as currently drafted, incarcerated people and their families will receive significantly less relief than originally anticipated and is necessary. The FCC is being manipulated by a predatory industry that is transparently colluding with state and local agencies vexed about an impending loss of revenue they should have never been privy to but collected for decades. Correctional telecom providers and their partner agencies have threatened to deny incarcerated people communication services if their unjust financial windfall is not restored in an effort to suggest that the industry cannot survive the 2024 regulations. So far only one rural jail has taken such action and, despite the suspension of the rules, it has not returned communications services to its population.

“The data released by Worth Rises today demonstrates the absurdity of this claim. Nearly all prison systems, which hold more than two-thirds of our nation’s incarcerated population, are already at or below the revised rate cap. In fact, many are already compliant with the 2024 rate caps. The revised rate caps decrease savings for families by nearly half, an outcome that simply cannot be justified by the sparse record presented by the industry and law enforcement. Most importantly, however, the FCC’s revised rules gut the very purpose of this regulation: communication. The 2024 rules were projected to generate nearly two billion additional call minutes every year, strengthening family bonds and public safety alike. The new proposal slashes that figure by a staggering 66%.

“Rolling back such important and well-reasoned regulations to address a singular uncompromising jail or pretextual concerns undermines more than a decade of the agency’s work in setting just and reasonable rates, as mandated by Congress by the Martha Wright Reed Act. Families impacted by incarceration deserve real relief — not regulatory backpedaling. We urge the Commission to not let this predatory industry manipulate the rulemaking process with audacious claims, given its gross history, that it is protecting communication services for incarcerated people. Instead, it should listen to those who must rely on these services everyday for connection, support, and survival and their allies — nearly 15,000 of which have filed comments opposing any delay or rollback to the 2024 rules.”

Worth Rises will be meeting with Commissioners over the following week to propose changes to strengthen the draft regulations and minimize these negative impacts.