Sanders Wants to Make It Cheaper for Families to Visit Inmates

His bill would also wipe out federal funding for private prisons.

<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/afge/16603911783/in/photolist-rieov6-idbS6Z-rXrFy7-ri2TrY-rXrH8Q-x7QRPE-rXsRzu-rXzQFa-rVGYex-rXrCsY-rVGULR-rXsTzG-rXzMNr-ri2NAq-rXrDKs-prt9zo-xq3dqB-rXrBnG-ymeYhx-y4BNZs-ymZcW7-x7QTbA-x7QRe9-xpsdyp-9kmvAa-rXrHHC-riejJi-riejBK-seTgdu-rXsU2d-riektz-seTgBA-rXrJ4N-riek8K-scK6K3-ri2SZL-sf35a2-seZbiX-rVGXcx-rXzQkR-rVGZrc-rXrFX3-rXsR4u-rVGWkc-rVH1pV-rXsTqd-seTjWb-rXsPkQ-ri2PCf-seThUW">AFGE</a>/Flickr

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Americans with a family member behind bars have to pay for a lot more than just a lawyer. Although the FCC recently capped the cost of interstate  phone calls from correctional facilities at 21 cents a minute, in-state calls, which are not regulated, can cost five times more than that. And as I explained in a piece for the magazine in February, it can cost as much as a dollar a minute for a 20-minute video visit with an inmate at county jails. (By comparison, the in-person visits that video visitation software has replaced are free.)

Now, Bernie Sanders wants to change that. On Thursday, the independent senator from Vermont, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, introduced a bill (co-sponsored by three progressive congressmen) designed to crack down on private contractors in public prisons. The bill’s biggest-ticket item is a prohibition on federal funding for private prisons altogether. (Currently about 1.6 million federal inmates nationally are at private facilities.)

But the bill—read it here—also takes on video and phone contractors. Specifically, it would put an unspecified cap on the per-minute cost of video and phone conferencing with inmates; it would prohibit or restrict correctional facilities from taking a cut of the revenue from phone and video conferencing fees (which can create an incentive to jack up rates, and cut back on things like in-person visitation); and it would require corrections departments to open up their facilities to multiple phone and video contractors, giving inmates and their families choices over which providers to use.

Sanders has already nudged the Democratic field to the left on economic issues like a $15 minimum wage. Maybe prison justice is next.

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In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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