As incarcerated individuals are deprived of family visitation across the country and the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, Team #MediaJustice is urging Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai to move fast on behalf of the incarcerated and their families, to ensure our people are not left behind as COVID-19 escalates the crisis that is mass incarceration in this country.

Sign the petition to help us push the FCC Chairman to meet our three demands NOW: 

1. Request predatory prison phone companies offer free phone and video calls with no fees to incarcerated and detained individuals immediately for the next 60 days.

2. Commit the prison phone industry to sign onto the Keep Americans Connected Pledge. ₁

3. Deny Securus’ emergency request to stop paying into the Universal Service Fund. ₂ 

Our executive director, Steven Renderos, sums up the urgency of these demands: 

“In the midst of the COVID-19 global health crisis, when justice-involved families are struggling to maintain connection to confirm their health and safety, communication from prisons must be free. For over a decade, companies have raked in billions from families so desperate to keep in contact that they make the choice between phone calls and food. The Federal Communications Commission must step in to provide relief and ensure that all families stay connected during this global pandemic.”

We can rise to meet this moment with courage and compassion: Here’s something you can do now to help

Demand 1: Free calls for 60 days

Few facilities are exploring free communication in extremely limited circumstances, such as free one or two, five to fifteen minute phone calls per week. In light of suspended family visitation, these measures don’t go far enough to ensure that families can remain in touch with their incarcerated loved ones at such a crucial time. This is where Ajit Pai comes in. The members of our community who are incarcerated are severely vulnerable to the virus, locked away in overcrowded, inhumane cages that were a humanitarian crisis before the virus began to spread. Freeing up prison phone lines by a nationwide mandate ensures that they aren’t left behind when the right to connect to family and community makes a crucial difference.

Demand 2: The prison phone industry commits to the "Keep Americans Connected" Pledge

At this time, 390 companies in the country have committed to the “Keep Americans Connected” Pledge, promising to not terminate services, to waive late fees for people unable to pay due to the pandemic, and to open wifi hotspots to anyone who needs them for the next 60 days. Pai should urge the prison phone industry to get on board like so many other companies have done. We want to ensure that families with incarcerated loved ones are also covered by this pledge and are not penalized for connecting to one another when it matters most.

Demand 3: Deny Securus’ emergency request

Predatory prison phone company Securus Technologies leeches hundreds of millions of dollars from families with incarcerated members each year. These families are disproportionately Black, brown, and living on low incomes, and are now particularly suffering mass unemployment and uncertainty as COVID-19 upends American jobs en masse. And now, Securus is exploiting this uncertainty by attempting to drop out of paying into the Universal Service Fund. This cold-hearted greed is deplorable and we’re demanding the FCC deny their request and hold this multi-million dollar corporation to their commitment. ₃

Help us amplify our demands to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and offer relief to our people in the midst of crisis: Sign the petition

We can do this. New York City and San Francisco made phone calls from local jails free in 2019 and statewide bills to make phone calls in prisons and jails free have been proposed in Connecticut and Massachusetts. However, federal efforts to reduce prison phone call rates were rolled back under the Trump administration as Pai directed FCC lawyers to stop defending caps on call rates approved by the agency in 2015. MediaJustice has been in this fight all along. Show the members of our community that we don’t forget them when they’re incarcerated, and that we’ll fight as long as it takes for our right to connection--and their freedom. _{4 5}

In solidarity, 

Myaisha and Team #MediaJustice

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Sources:

[1] Keeping Americans Connected Pledge

[2] Securus Emergency Request

[3] MediaJustice

[4] The Daily Californian