Representing the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry (UCC Media Justice), Samuelson Clinic students drafted and filed motions to intervene in four separate challenges to recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules regulating the rates charged to incarcerated people and their families for making phone calls and using advanced communications services. These cases have been consolidated and assigned by lottery to the First Circuit, where the Clinic contributed to a public interest coalition’s intervenor’s brief defending a 2024 FCC Order that sought to ensure that rates for Incarcerated People’s Communications Services (IPCS) are “just and reasonable.” While the litigation is still ongoing, the coalition achieved a crucial victory when the First Circuit issued a published per curiam decision rejecting arguments that the case should be transferred to the Fifth Circuit. Unfortunately, the FCC released a superseding order that hikes the rates for IPCS, placing crucial communications services beyond the reach of incarcerated people and their families. Consequently, we filed a petition for review to challenge the new FCC order.
The litigation over the FCC’s Incarcerated People’s Communications Services (IPCS) Order raises many issues, including how to define and quantify “just and reasonable” rates for carceral communications services, and who should bear the cost of features and requirements related to those services that benefit the carceral facility rather than users of the services.
UCC Media Justice is part of a coalition of public interest organizations seeking to defend the bulk of the FCC rules. UCC Media Justice has actively defended incarcerated people’s rights to access communications services for more than an decade by participating in Commission proceedings, related litigation, and the successfully effort to secure passage and enactment of the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, which clarified the FCC’s authority to regulate IPCS rates. Accessible and affordable IPCS services contribute to safer communities and stronger families by making it easier for incarcerated people to maintain ties with their families and loved ones, and to succeed when they rejoin their communities. Defending the IPCS Order is a critical step towards that goal. This matter is ongoing.