Congressional Black Caucus wins cap on prison call rates | WashingtonExaminer.com
Your political representatives in action!
Now granted, they didn’t free all non-violent drug offenders and fund their addiction treatment and rehabilitation.
They didn’t end the drug war and disband the DEA.
They didn’t pass laws to decriminalize drugs in order to end the underground economy and the violence that it fuels.
They didn’t expose the CIA, and mega-banks as being the key traffickers and money launders of drugs and drug money.
They didn’t make it illegal for private corporations to profit from the mass incarceration of US citizens.
They didn’t amend the US Constitutions to end legalized enslavement of the entire US prison population.
The didn’t push for Obama to free and pardon all political prisoners and exiles.
They didn’t end felony disenfranchisement, reform the totally corrupt US courts and law enforcement agencies, no none of that.But the Congressional Black Caucus did put a cap an the rates that phone companies could charge inmates when they reach out to their family members from the wall of those genocidal concentration camps that got so many of our people locked up in. Now, they have allowed the rate to still remain insanely high (21 cents per min.), but hey, better than noting…right?
Why not give a call to that Talented Tenth and tell them how much you appreciate their bold representation of the Black community.
A group of lawmakers in the Congressional Black Caucus has achieved victory with a move by the Federal Communications Commission to cap the cost of prison phone calls. The agency announced that it will limit the costs of intrastate calls to 21 cents per minute, a steep reduction from what the families of inmates currently pay. According to the FCC, the cost of some calls can run as high as $17 for a 15-minute call. The caucus has been pushing for the cap for years, and among the champions of the move is D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Districtâs non-voting member of Congress. Norton, a Democrat, represents thousands of D.C. constituents with a jailed family member. The District has the highest incarceration rate in the country, with an estimated one in 50 people in jail, according to a July 2010 report from the Justice Policy Institute. Many D.C. inmates are sent away to federal prisons around the country and are hundreds of miles away. Norton said the CBC made âa special effortâ to get the FCC to impose the cap, which it also may apply to calls within states.
