Reduced cost of phone, video calls from inmates to families in 2025

SHREVEPORT, La. ( KTAL/KMSS ) – The families of Louisiana Department of Corrections inmates will get some relief from the exorbitant cost of phone calls from state prisons in the new year.

Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell announced on Monday morning that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will set “just and reasonable” phone call charges effective January 1, 2025.

“Louisiana families have for years been charged outrageously high rates and unauthorized fees added to bills,” Campbell said.  “That is because monopoly telephone companies formed an alliance with Louisiana sheriffs and prison officials to take advantage of people with no political power.”

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the change came after members of the FCC voted to implement new federal regulations on phone and video communications in jails and prisons, as required by the passing of the  2022 Martha Wright-Reed Fair and Just Communications Act .

Campbell has been fighting these rates, which are, on average, 30 times higher than calls made outside of correctional facilities, since an 18-month investigation he launched in 2011. In 2012, sweeping reforms were adopted, but in 2013, when new Commissioners were elected to the five-member board, the reforms were undone within two months.

“Inmate telephone calls have long been a scandal,” Campbell said.  “You have an entrenched group of special interests taking advantage of probably the least politically influential people in this country: inmates and their families. “That is why the unanimous support of Congress for the nationwide reform and the FCC’s resulting action are so significant.”

Commissioner Campbell is asking all providers of inmate telecommunications operating in Louisiana to attend the LPSC meeting on October 16 in Plaquemines Parish to answer questions about their contracts with Louisiana jails and prisons.

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