Martha Wright Reed Act Ensures Reasonable Phone Rates in Prisons

On January 5th 2023, President Biden signed into law the bipartisan Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, restoring the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) authority to regulate all prison and jail calls. The legislation clarifies that the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates interstate and international communications through cable, radio, television, satellite and wire, can set limits for fees on audio and video calls inside corrections facilities. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois, and now-retired Sen. Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio.

Phone calls from prisons and jails are a lifeline for those incarcerated, but the cost varies widely and can be a financial drain on families already struggling to make ends meet with an adult behind bars. Right now, Kentucky has the highest cost for a 15-minute call, at $5.70, and $9.99 for a cellphone call, while New Hampshire charges only 20 cents for the same amount of time. Prison visits were halted during the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing inmates to rely heavily on phone calls, and the health crisis showcased the wide-ranging disparities in state and federal phone charges. Studies by prison reform advocates and academics have shown that visitation and phone calls with loved ones decrease the likelihood that a person will commit crime again.

The national fight to stop prison telecom corporations from charging incarcerated people and their loved ones predatory rates started more than 20 years ago with the late Martha Wright-Reed and ended earlier this month with her grandson Ulandis Forte, a formerly incarcerated individual, with Biden signing the bill into law. Wright-Reed was a retired nurse who tried for more than two decades to get more affordable rates because she could not afford to call her incarcerated grandson at the cost of more than $100 per month.

According to Forte, Reed would call her grandson every Sunday while he was in prison during the 1990s at a time when a single 15-minute phone call could sometimes cost his grandmother a total of $45 to $60, Forte told The Crime Report, comprehensive news service covering the diverse challenges and issues of 21st century criminal justice in the U.S. and abroad. “She had to choose between getting her medication this month or paying a phone bill, and she always chose a phone bill in order for us to be able to communicate, because she knew that we would be stronger together then we could be apart,” Forte said. 

To read more about the Martha Wright-Reed Act, Forte's relationship with his grandmother and the advocacy it inspired, read "Prison Phone Fees Win Was 20 Years In The Making" at The Crime Report.