Losing Phone Profits, Prison Telecom Providers Seek to Exploit Tablet Services

Antoine Davis’ incarceration has cost more than his freedom.

One window to the outside world is his tablet, made by Securus Technologies. But the expense of using it to communicate with others far exceeds what limited money he earns while inside.

In a given month, Davis, an incarcerated writer in Washington state, said he spends over $300 on his tablet, a budget that mostly goes toward phone calls and e-messages with family and editors. With prison earnings from his warehouse job netting him less than a dollar an hour, Davis said he has to stretch his limited budget for hygiene necessities and food. He counts on his family to foot the bill for tablet purchases like phone calls, messaging, and music.

“It is definitely a burden,” Davis said. “A lot of what I’m able to do over my tablet is because I have the family support, but there are a lot of people who don’t.”

Davis is one of many incarcerated people nationwide who are turning to tablets and other digital services provided by the two telecommunications giants that dominate the prison telecommunications market: Securus Technologies and ViaPath Technologies, formerly known as Global Tel Link.

Following a series of acquisitions in the 2000s, the companies, both owned by private equity, now control roughly 80% of the U.S. market for phone and video calls in prisons and local jails. But the industry is under intense scrutiny. After years of pressure from activists to cut the sky-high prices the companies charge for prison phone calls, federal and state regulators are cracking down. Since 2021, Connecticut, California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Minnesota have made prison phone calls free. And after a decades-long fight, President Joe Biden signed legislation in January 2023 allowing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to limit the cost of prison calls nationwide. This July, the federal agency also voted on new rules that will slash the current prices that companies can charge to make phone calls by up to roughly 90%.

Now, attorneys general from 14 states as well as prison telecom giants are challenging the FCC’s rate caps in court, arguing that the caps deprive correctional facilities of necessary funding. The proposed changes not only cut into the companies’ revenues and profitability but also come on top of deeper financial struggles they face — particularly Securus Technologies’ parent company, Aventiv Technologies. Having taken on enormous debt to finance their expansion, the current high-interest rate environment has squeezed the cash flow and returns of private-equity funded companies like Aventiv and ViaPath, said Chris Mooney, a director at the credit ratings agency S&P Global Ratings.

But the difficulties hardly mean the telecom providers are giving up on the lucrative business of selling services to the incarcerated, who’ve long been exploited by the high cost of communicating with loved ones. Instead, ViaPath, Securus, and its sister company as of 2015, JPay, are shifting strategy. The companies are increasingly focused on offering tablets and other digital media services to families and their loved ones inside to make up for their lost revenues and profits. These are services where revenues are growing, and which have attracted far less scrutiny from activists and regulators than simple phone and video calls.

For Aventiv and its competitors in the prison telecommunications space, Mooney said the long-term growth required to reverse companies’ financial woes lies in the tablet business. In its October 2023 report, the agency noted that the company distributed more than 600,000 tablets nationwide by mid-2023, up from 400,000 in 2021.

“The goal is really to diversify away from traditional commodities like phone [and video] calls that are regulated,” Mooney said. “As these tablets get installed in these facilities, it provides another avenue for monetization for Aventiv and for Viapath.”

Bianca Tylek, executive director of Worth Rises, an advocacy organization aimed at dismantling the prison industry, told Prism it’s clear telecommunications companies recognize that the market for phone calls is quickly shrinking — along with the profits to be made.

“So they need to move into areas of telecom and these communication services or technologies that are unregulated, that people are not necessarily as familiar with because they’re also newer in that environment,” Tylek said.

Expensive Technologies

In many ways, of course, the shift to tablets has been a boon for the incarcerated. They have become indispensable to men like Julio Garcia, 33. With more than a decade left to serve at the Florida State Prison, being able to call or text family and friends directly from his tablet helps Garcia keep his mind off of being incarcerated.

“The services that they’re offering, like podcasts and things of that nature to get your mind away from where you’re at and maybe learn something,” Garcia said. “It’s helpful in a way.”

He added that the tablets also seem to calm down the overall prison environment. Before they arrived, incarcerated people had fewer options to spend their time, which led to fighting over activities such as watching TV or playing cards. The atmosphere was “more helter-skelter.” But now, Garcia said, “You’ll see everybody mostly on their bunk, doing whatever they’re doing, listening to music, playing video games, watching a movie.”

The tablets also provide the incarcerated with much-needed privacy, added Davis. With tablets that allow phone calls, people inside can make phone calls from their cells rather than from the traditional prison phones — a more convenient and quieter option than trying to talk with “a bunch of people yelling in the background,” Davis said.

Yet, for all the benefits, the tablets and the array of digital services they enable come with a familiar problem: excessive costs. Incarcerated people and their families complain that the new services are pricey and cost far more than the same outside services.

Sending emails and documents is generally free outside of prison, and sharing a photo or video doesn’t cost anything. But that’s not the case for the incarcerated and their loved ones.

For example, to send an electronic message through Securus Technologies’ mobile app, buying a digital “stamp” is necessary. The cost of that stamp varies widely across the country, depending on the state. Missouri charges 25 cents per message, while in Georgia and Florida, incarcerated people have to pay 44 cents a pop — and that’s just to send a written message. To share a photo or send a birthday card, Florida demands another 44-cent stamp. Missouri pockets up to 50 cents more to do the same. And for loved ones buying stamps so they can reply back, the company charges a $3 transaction fee on top of the cost of buying stamps.

Charges for video can also quickly add up. While it costs nothing for people outside to create and share short videos with friends through social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, loved ones must pay for the privilege to send videos to incarcerated people — if the prison allows the service at all. In states that have contracted to use JPay’s VideoGram app to send 30-second videos to family or friends, the cost is between 66 cents and around $1.50, depending on the state.

Affordable music streaming services such as Spotify or Apple Music are also nonexistent inside; the incarcerated generally have to pay for individual songs or albums, like in the iTunes era. Here, too, the charges vary widely from state to state. In Washington, it’s anywhere from 99 cents to $14.99 for an album. In Missouri, the majority of albums are priced between $1.51 and $25.93. The Department of Corrections’ (DOC) 2023 contract with Securus allowed the company to charge more than $100 for an album.

Patricia Trimble, an incarcerated journalist in Missouri, told Prism that Securus made pricing changes in March 2023, raising the prices on some albums and lowering others. Meanwhile, the company doesn’t allow incarcerated people to buy some albums in full but rather charges them for individual songs, Trimble said. The compilation “By Your Side” by Intel Music has 80 songs. At $1.91 per song, downloading the entire album would cost $152.80, Thimble said. Missouri DOC did not respond to Prism’s question regarding why some albums cost more than $100.

The story is the same for movie and game downloads. In Washington, some movies are free. But other movie rentals cost up to $9.99 and must be watched within 48 hours. Movie subscriptions go for $12.46 per month, nearly double Netflix’s cheapest $6.99 plan.

Prison officials and companies defend these higher charges, arguing that providing telecommunications services inside of prisons comes with higher costs. M., a former Securus employee who asked to remain anonymous for fear of career retaliation, explained that it’s often true that companies like Securus must upgrade a prison’s infrastructure and equipment. For example, in order to facilitate video, music streaming, and other digital media services in prison, Securus has to “re-cable every one of those institutions with fiber, which was not originally planned,” M. said. In a statement, Securus said the company has invested more than $600 million in prison infrastructure across the country.

Prisons must also invest extra in monitoring usage. As the new services are adopted, says A., another former Securus staffer who wanted to remain anonymous, employees quickly discover how creative people inside can get when sending explicit images that aren’t allowed, including pornography or gang signs using hand signals or insignias on shirts, posters, or other objects.

But criminal justice activists and other critics say these issues only explain a fraction of the higher pricing. According to advocates, in most states, prisons and DOCs have traditionally received a percentage of the revenues earned by companies for the telecommunications services they provide inside. That means the prison gets a cut for every $1 paid to make a phone call, download a video, or send a text message. And since prisons are the ones that negotiate the contracts with Securus, ViaPath, and other providers, officials have just as much incentive as the companies to keep prices high. The more revenue companies earn from incarcerated people and their families, the bigger the cut that goes back to a prison’s budget.

Prisons rely on these commissions to shore up their budgets, which — depending on the state — can range between six to eight figures for the tablet services alone. Officials also argue that the commissions provide resources for prison enrichment services, such as parenting programs that include video visitation or mental health counselors and a family liaison, among other part-time and full-time staff positions. In Georgia, spokeswoman Joan Heath said the DOC uses the millions in commissions it receives from Securus to support programs that benefit the incarcerated.

The relationship can be quite lucrative. Texas earned $3.1 million in commissions from Securus’ e-messaging services for fiscal year 2023 and is on pace to hit $4.7 million in fiscal 2024, according to records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice obtained via open records requests. That’s nearly quadruple the $1.2 million it earned in 2022.

Beyond e-messaging, other new digital media services are now generating sizable commissions for states. In Washington, where the DOC received a 25.8% commission from Securus on tablet services, music purchased by the incarcerated during the first three-quarters of 2023 generated over $438,000 in commissions. Movies brought in another $157,938, followed by games at $152,259. TV shows added another $44,328 to the pot.

While the new FCC regulations could end commissions for phone and video calls, advocates say no such regulations exist for tablet services, which means prison officials are incentivized to keep prices for these services high.

And because incarcerated people and their families have no freedom to choose cheaper alternatives, they must use the provider the state chooses — no matter how inflated the price.

According to Ariel Nelson, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, state prisons often sign contracts that bundle regulated services, such as phone and video calls, with unregulated digital and communications services, like e-messaging, music, movies, and other entertainment or educational content. Once states sign complex, multi-year contracts with these companies, they are usually locked in. Even when less expensive alternatives exist, it can take years to phase out the existing systems.

“If you’re going to eliminate that negative financial relationship, it means the agency is going to lose millions of dollars in [commissions] that they’ve been reliant upon and their budget was adjusted for,” said Maxwell Ruppersberg, executive director of Reform Georgia, a nonprofit criminal justice policy advocacy group. “So they’re going to have to ask for more money from the state to provide an appropriate level of low-cost communication.”

For incarcerated people and their families, however, the high costs of these new digital services are a major burden. Those inside who earn a wage for their work bring in between 13 and 52 cents an hour, according to a 2022 report from the American Civil Liberties Union. This is why incarcerated people often rely on their loved ones to pay for the digital services on their tablets, along with other necessities. That burden falls particularly hard on the women in their lives, such as moms, sisters, wives, and girlfriends, said Christopher Blackwell, an incarcerated writer in Washington state.

“We know statistically that one of the biggest things that reduces recidivism is strong support networks in the community,” Blackwell said. “So you’re forcing people that can barely manage this to make a choice. Do I pay my bills, put food in my house, pay my car payment, things like this? Or have anything reasonably nice? Or do I stay in contact with my loved one who made a poor decision and is in prison or might be wrongfully convicted?”

In a statement, a Securus spokesperson said the company currently bases its pricing on the iTunes model, but it has tested a subscription-based pricing model. The spokesperson declined to share when or if they will introduce the model across the U.S., but the company recognizes that “these offerings could provide users with more predictable monthly costs for staying connected with their incarcerated loved ones.”

Subpar Service

The problem with JPay and Securus isn’t just the high cost; the tablets are also plagued by poor quality and service issues. Sometimes, the technology simply doesn’t function as expected, further distancing incarcerated people from their loved ones and the outside world.

Earlier this year, when Garcia turned 33 in a Florida prison, he expected to receive a digital scan of a birthday card from his mother. She said she sent it a week early, but no card arrived by his birthday. In fact, the card never came. Instead, Garcia had to content himself with looking through the bag he keeps in his locker of the physical cards he received in the past.

Garcia has experienced other problems with his Securus tablet, too. He can’t always connect to Wi-Fi and sometimes has trouble logging in to check his messages. It would “keep spinning and spinning and spinning. ” When he spoke to Prism in April, Garcia said Securus malfunctioned “a lot lately,” forcing him to turn his tablet off for an hour to get it working again.

Davis had similar complaints in Washington, with e-messages sometimes arriving a month after they were sent. He and others inside are often frustrated by technical difficulties and slow customer service when they have tablet issues.

Davis was one of many Securus tablet users who lost their message drafts in a glitch last fall. As a result, he lost a few drafts of the articles he was writing and the second chapter of his book. He estimated that he lost between 60 to 70 hours’ worth of work. Without those drafts, he and others who lost their work will have to start over, he said.

Following the glitch, Securus offered two stamps as compensation for lost messages.

The loss of all that work is “really disheartening,” Davis said. “It almost makes you wonder, do I even continue to engage in this work, knowing that at any given time these people can do this, and there’s really no accountability?”

When seeking deals for its telecommunications services with state prison officials, Securus portrays itself as having top-notch service. In promotional materials provided to the Washington DOC, Securus touted its award-winning customer service, according to emails obtained via open records requests. The company even mentioned the Gold Stevie business award, which it won in 2018 for its customer service complaints team of the year.

However, complaint records paint a different picture.

Support ticket records show that Securus users often face long delays in resolving problems with their tablets and communications services.

In Georgia, between March and September 2023, the company received 865 complaints about its tablets, including issues with keyboards, broken tablets, and missing tablet accessories, according to records obtained from the Georgia DOC. Nearly three-quarters of those problems — 73% — remained unsolved as of September 18, 2023, with wait times ranging from two to six months.

An analysis of the records shows that only 12% of the 865 complaints were resolved in a week or less, and the remainder took as long as three months to be cleared.

The impact these malfunctions have on incarcerated people becomes clear to Securus staffers when they visit prisons. While converting tablets to new software, for example, some found that older mail stored on their tablets suddenly disappeared, according to M., the former Securus employee.

“So you would inevitably go into a housing unit, and they said, ‘Hey, something’s wrong with the mail. I have a picture of my grandmother which was on my tablet, and it’s gone, and she’s deceased, and I really want that photo,’” M. said.

Ultimately, the messages weren’t deleted, he said; they were archived because the system didn’t have enough capacity to show tens of thousands of messages for thousands of people inside.

In one state where this snafu occurred, M. asked his product managers to change the setup so that all the archived messages would reappear—including that photo of Grandma. “Now, he may have 4,000 messages that he has to go through to find the one with this picture of his grandmother, but at least it was available,” said M.

At times, incarcerated people seeking help for their tablet problems have been subjected to dehumanizing treatment.

On February 8, 2023, someone incarcerated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) informed a prison staffer about the treatment he received from a Securus contract employee when requesting help for his malfunctioning tablet. He could listen to music on the device, he explained to the Securus contractor, but he couldn’t hear his relatives speak when they called, according to an email written by a Securus human resources representative obtained through a public records request.

The Securus contractor “continued to talk over [the] inmate, telling him that his tablet worked and he was done.” The inmate said to the Securus contractor, “So you are not going to help me?” The contractor responded by saying, “Bye bye bye, you can leave.” Upon exiting the on-site Securus office, the inmate said, “This is bullshit. I wrote a [request] to get help, and now you’re not helping me.” The Securus contractor replied using a slur, saying, “Fuck you, you bitch ass n—.” Another prison staffer overheard the exchange and provided a statement about the incident.

In an email sent two weeks later, TDCJ’s chief information officer Tina Clark wrote to Securus and asked the company to provide counsel and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) remediation training for the Securus contractor. “Racial slurs and profanity are not acceptable in communication with staff or inmates,” she wrote. According to records, the contractor was given a warning and advised that further incidents would result in a ban from all TDCJ facilities. A Securus spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.

It’s not just prisoners who struggle to resolve problems with Securus technology; relatives on the outside do as well. When Kathy Kalogianis sends e-messages to her husband Chuck, who is incarcerated in Florida, Kalogianis said her messages often fail to go through in a timely fashion. Some messages take a few days or even a week to arrive, she said. She reached out to Securus for help, but the only response she received was an automated message, a review of messages from JPay show.

Though contracts with Securus can generate millions of dollars in commissions for state correctional departments, unsatisfactory service sometimes dissuades prisons from offering tablet services inside.

In Georgia, for example, the DOC contracted with Securus for a range of services, everything from phone and video calls to games and music. By 2022, its total commissions hit $7.04 million.

But in December of that year, the DOC told Securus it wanted to cancel its tablet deal due to concerns about “tablet security, scheduling delays, and other requirements under the contract,” according to emails and contract drafts obtained via an open records request. By the middle of 2023, Georgia DOC and Securus were negotiating a settlement: Officials returned tablets to the company and refunded those inside for the music, games, and other services they purchased. Securus said the company has “been a proud partner of the Georgia Department of Corrections since 2016,” but did not comment on the settlement.

The agency, which signed a nondisparagement clause as part of its settlement with Securus, declined to comment on its reasons for canceling the deal. In an email, spokeswoman Heath said the DOC is currently seeking new tablets.

The Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act of 2022, which President Biden signed into law on Jan. 5, 2023, changed the Communications Act of 1934 to give the FCC explicit authority to regulate prison phone and video calls, not e-messaging or other digital media available through tablets. To rein in the cost of those services, regulatory agencies at the state and federal levels must intervene. Just as states curtailed phone rates before the FCC’s cap, the same could be done with tablet services. “Legislation is the only way,” according to Wanda Bertram, communications strategist at the Prison Policy Initiative. A spokesperson for the FCC declined to comment.

Nelson said it would likely fall on other federal agencies like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to curb the cost of the other services provided by tablets, but she’s less optimistic about these agencies taking action during the upcoming administration. Earlier this year, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker introduced the Families Over Fees Act of 2024, giving the FTC authority to “limit and eliminate excessive, hidden, and unnecessary fees imposed on incarcerated individuals and their families.”

The bill hasn’t progressed since its May introduction. The FTC said it can’t regulate the price of prison telecommunications companies’ digital media-related services.

Nelson doesn’t anticipate the Families over Fees Act passing quickly, partly because so many bills move slowly through Congress. However, fines and fees-related issues could garner bipartisan support, and Nelson said other legislation such as the Martha Wright Reed Act, the Federal Prison Oversight Act, and the First Step Act could pave the way for future legislation. Lawmakers’ failure to regulate these costs adds additional burdens to families who disproportionately are people of color and already financially struggling, Nelson added.

“It isn’t just a small number of people in this country who are affected by these types of things. We’re talking about millions of people and millions more if we’re talking about their families,” Nelson said. “If you end up imposing such inflated costs on people, you are not helping them find stability. You are completely undermining it.”

Unless lawmakers and regulators curtail the costs of the tablet media and communications services, incarcerated people and their families will continue to be forced to pay high prices — fees justified under the guise of security and supportive programming, Blackwell said. Though he is grateful for the times that Securus works properly, the company’s services shouldn’t cost as much as they do — especially because those inside can’t access cheaper, better alternatives, he said.

“It’s unacceptable,” Blackwell said. “We don’t allow companies to treat consumers this way. And if they do, they go out of business because consumers will just move their business to a company that will not treat them that way.”

Prism is an independent and nonprofit newsroom led by journalists of color. We report from the ground up and at the intersections of injustice.