Community groups in New Jersey delivered a petition to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities this week asking that it lower the intrastate call rates for inmates and detainees at correctional facilities statewide. (It is cheaper in New Jersey to make out-of-state calls since the FCC voted in August to cap interstate rates at $0.12 per minute, with a $0.14 rate for interstate collect calls.) It’s up to each state to regulate intrastate calls.
At the Bergen County Jail, for example, a prisoner can make a 15-minute interstate call for $3.75; a 15-minute intrastate call costs $7.50. In New York, a 15-minute call from state prisons costs less than a dollar.
