An inmate telephone system, also known as an Inmate Calling Service (ICS) or Inmate telephone service, is telephone service intended for use by inmates in correctional facilities in the United States. Telephone service for inmates allows for their rehabilitation by allowing consistent communication with their family and legal counsel while incarcerated.
In the United States, prison telecom is a $1.2 billion industry, mostly controlled by two private equity-backed companies—Global Tel Link (GTL) with a 50% market share as of 2015. and Securus Technologies, with 20%. The prison telecom industry has come under scrutiny due to the nature of their business model, as high commissions paid by providers as part of exclusive contracts with individual facilities are passed down to consumers through service rates significantly higher than standard phone service. While there have been attempts by the United States' telecom regulator, the FCC, to regulate the costs of inmate telephone services, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that its policy violated the Telecommunications Act, which forbids the FCC from regulating intrastate communications.
Operation
In order to use an inmate telephone service, inmates must register and provide a list of names and numbers for the people they intend to communicate with. Call limitations vary depending on the prison's house rule, but calls are typically limited to 15 minutes each, and inmates must wait thirty minutes before being allowed to make another call. Calls are recorded and monitored by the prison's staff. Phone credits are typically accessed via an inmate account card. Since 2001, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has required that use be limited to 300 minutes per-month.
Providers
In the United States, the inmate telephone market is dominated by two providers, Global Tel Link (GTL) and Securus Technologies, with Global Tel-Link controlling approximately 50% of the market and Securus with 20%. The New York-based private equity firm, Veritas Capital, with assets of over five billion, acquired GTL under the tenure of Veritas' founder and CEO Robert B. McKeon. Mobile, Alabama-based GTL was a subsidiary of GTEL Holdings in 2009 and offered "inmate communications, investigative, facility management, visitation, payment and deposit, and content solutions".
New York-based American Securities purchased GTL for $1 billion in 2011, and Boston-based ABRY Partners purchased Securus in 2013 for $640 million. > When the global private-equity company Castle Harlan purchased Securus Technologies from Miami-based private equity company, H.I.G. Capital in 2011, they claimed that Securus was "the leading provider" of "inmate telecommunications for the corrections industry".
Service rates
Before the 1990s, in the United States, service rates for phone calls within jails were similar to those available to the general public through commercial providers. Since then jail phone service providers began to charge higher rates for the phone services than traditional home phone service. Illinois congressman Bobby L. Rush introduced "The Family Telephone Connection Protection Act of 2007" that began the discussion of rate regulation for inmate telephone calls. This Bill brought about the defining of the actual costs of telephone services from jails and it was hoped would result in a standardization of rates among inmate telephone providers in 2009 or 2010.