Melinda Daniels always has one eye on the clock when her husband calls for a post-work debrief.
Like most long-distance relationships, the couple relies on phone calls to stay connected and in sync on family, finances and other personal matters. But they don’t have the luxury of unlimited calling plans.
“There was no room financially for more than that,” said Melinda Daniels, who works as a case manager at a psychiatric hospital and supports two teenage daughters.
Joe works on a crew for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority and earns about $75 weekly.
Long-anticipated relief arrived for Melinda Daniels and thousands of other Oklahomans with incarcerated loved ones in late February. To comply with a new FCC regulation capping prison and jail phone call rates, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and Securus Technologies agreed to lower the state’s phone call rate from 14 cents per minute to 6 cents per minute. Securus initially charged 20 cents per minute when it took over Oklahoma’s prison phone system in 2020.
The FCC order, which took effect on Jan. 1, also forbids communications providers from charging service fees to replenish phone accounts and paying phone call commissions to prison and jail officials. Oklahoma will no longer receive $3.5 million per year from Securus under the amended contract.
Melinda Daniels said she’s been able to talk with her husband about twice as much since the rate change took effect.
“It’s brought us closer together,” she said. “We were already pretty close, but being able to talk about how our day was or ask everyday questions has definitely helped.”
Kristy Hatcher, whose husband, Jamal, is also incarcerated at Joseph Harp, said the phone call rate change saved her about $60 in March. But she fears Securus will try to make up the difference by driving up usage of state-issued tablets, which were made available to prisoners statewide in 2021.
Some content on the devices, such as library books and educational materials, is free. Features such as e-messaging, music and movie streaming are behind a paywall.
Messages must be purchased as a bundle and cost between 12 cents and 17 cents pre-tax. Those who purchase a smaller amount of message credits pay a high percentage in fees.
Hatcher said family members have started sending more e-messages since the Department of Corrections banned physical mail from entering state prisons in September. Non-legal mail sent to Oklahoma prisons is sent to a processing center in Dallas, where it’s sorted, scanned and uploaded to the prisoner’s Securus account. Prisoners can print a black-and-white copy for 25 cents or a color copy for $1.
The agency has stated the change was necessary to curb the flow of contraband drugs into facilities. Critics argue scanning policies strip away the sentimentality of physical mail, which has historically been the cheapest and most common form of communication between incarcerated people and the outside world.
“Nobody wants to just have a picture of their stuff,” Hatcher said. “So they’re going to make more money from that, period.”
Securus will pay the Oklahoma Department of Corrections $580,000 over 12 months for tablet e-messaging and media rights, according to the latest contract agreement. The terms also authorize Securus to launch a new Platinum Game Pass subscription service. The agency will use the commission money to support prisoner programs and staff wellness, spokesperson Kay Thompson said.
Wanda Bertram, a spokesperson for the Prison Policy Initiative, said prison communication companies have been shifting their focus to tablets for several years. Unlike phone calls, the FCC doesn’t have the authority to regulate tablet e-messaging. There are also no caps on commissions for e-messages, music or movies.
“This is exactly what we expected to happen when the new phone call regulations went into effect,” Bertram said. “The companies will pivot in concert with the facilities, who depend on these contracts for money that shores up their budgets.”
State lawmakers and regulatory bodies would likely have the authority to regulate prison tablet fees, Bertram said, but the issue hasn’t garnered much attention.
Securus and other companies haven’t given up on trying to overturn the federal rate caps. A pending lawsuit filed by Securus and Pay Tel alleges that the FCC exceeded its authority under the Martha Wright-Reed Fair and Just Communications Act. The law, which passed Congress in 2022 and was signed into law by former President Joe Biden in early 2023, authorized federal regulators to cap intrastate calls from correctional facilities for the first time. More than a dozen Republican-led states, not including Oklahoma, are also suing to block the order, maintaining that rate caps are arbitrary and will deprive prisons and jails of reliable commission revenue. Federal courts have declined requests to pause the rate cap implementation while the cases are pending.
