A gate opens at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama on October 22, 2019. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has joined a lawsuit seeking to overturn limits on phone rates that can be charged to people incarcerated in prison. (File)
I don’t know what constituency supports gouging prisoners’ families.
Is there a well-adjusted person whose vote depends on making prison phone calls as expensive as shame will allow? Or in restricting contact between the incarcerated and their loved ones, making it more likely they’ll re-offend?
But there’s Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s name on a petition to the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals , next to 13 other Republican attorneys general outraged that the federal government would try to stop an unnecessary cost.
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Why? Well, they say it’s “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion,” lacks evidence to support it “and is otherwise contrary to law.”
Prison phone services are infamously predatory. In Alabama in 2021, an average in-state 15-minute phone call from prison cost a little over $3 . Make a short phone call every day, and the bills stack up. Nationwide, some people reported paying up to $500 a month in phone bills to keep in touch with loved ones.