NARUC Opposes FCC Action on Intrastate ICS calls; 51 Former State Attorneys General Back It
States “remain in the best position to oversee and investigate” intrastate inmate calling services rates and service, NARUC said in comments posted in docket 12-375 Monday. State authority “is clear,” NARUC said, and additional federal actions on ICS “are unlikely…
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to survive judicial review and are likely to undermine existing State actions to address this issue.” NARUC supports FCC action to regulate interstate ICS calls, the group said. Fifty-one former state attorneys general urged the agency to regulate “high intrastate” ICS rates, a letter posted Friday said. They wrote that in their former positions, they “came to understand virtually all aspects of state government. Most of us were both criminal prosecutors while at the same time represented state departments of corrections. We fully understand the pressures on state budgets and how government often struggles to come up with enough funding to do even the simplest of things.” But they said they were “fully aware that 95 [percent] of the 2.2 million people held in prison and jails in the United States will one day be returned to society. We know that recidivism rates are high and that we as a society should do all that we can to lower that rate. Studies indicate that prisoners who maintain close connections with their families and children while incarcerated have lower recidivism rates.”