Georgia Pockets $8 Million a Year in Prison Phone Kickbacks While Families Go Into Debt to Stay Connected

News Lead

Georgia collected $8,062,200.60 in commission kickbacks from prison phone revenue in fiscal year 2018–2019 — the third-highest total in the nation — while one in three families with an incarcerated loved one goes into debt just to maintain contact, according to a new investigative research brief from Georgia Prisoners’ Speak.

The brief documents a $1.4 billion annual national extraction system in which two private equity-backed corporations — Securus Technologies and ViaPath Technologies — control approximately 80% of the U.S. prison communications market through state-granted monopolies, serving 3,450 facilities and 1.1 million people. In Georgia, families pay $0.06 per minute for phone calls, $0.20–$0.35 per email, and $3.50–$6.50 per money transfer, with an estimated realistic monthly cost of $115–$135 to maintain regular contact with an incarcerated loved one in a state prison. County jail families face rates three to four times higher.

The research lands as federal protections are collapsing: the FCC’s historic July 2024 rate caps — which would have saved families approximately $500 million annually nationwide — were reversed under new Trump administration leadership in October 2025, with maximum rates raised 83% and a new “facility cost recovery” fee that advocates call a backdoor restoration of the banned commission system. Six states have now made prison calls entirely free. Georgia has taken no legislative action.

Key Takeaway: Georgia ranks third nationally in prison phone kickback revenue at $8,062,200.60 per year, while families spend $115–$135 monthly on communications and the state has taken zero legislative action even as six other states have made calls free.

Quotable Statistics

The National Extraction System
– $1.4 billion: Total annual revenue of the U.S. prison communications industry, extracted from incarcerated people and their families through monopoly services
– 80%: Market share controlled by just two corporations — Securus Technologies and ViaPath Technologies
– 3,450 correctional facilities and 1.1 million incarcerated individuals served by the duopoly
– $460 million: Estimated total annual commission/kickback revenue paid to correctional facilities nationwide before the FCC’s 2024 ban

Georgia-Specific Data
– $8,062,200.60: Commission kickbacks Georgia received from prison phone revenue in fiscal year 2018–2019 — third-highest in the nation
– $0.06/minute: Current phone rate in Georgia state prisons (local, long distance, in-state, out-of-state, and international)
– $0.20–$0.35: Cost per email “stamp” on JPay system in Georgia prisons
– $3.50–$6.50: Money transfer fees charged by JPay, with the poorest families paying the highest effective rate (17.5% on a $20 transfer vs. 3.25% on a $200 transfer)
– $115–$135: Estimated realistic monthly cost for a Georgia family maintaining regular contact with a loved one in a GDC state prison
– $45/month: Cost for daily phone calls alone at current rates
– 25 minutes: Maximum call duration permitted in Georgia state prisons
– 15,500+: Contraband cell phones seized in Georgia prisons in 2024

Georgia County Jails (separate, often more exploitative contracts)
– Glynn County jail: 69% commission rate — highest in coastal Georgia — collecting more than $300,000 annually from 411 average daily prisoners
– Chatham County jail: 52% commission rate; families pay $8 for a 20-minute video call
– Liberty County jail: 50% commission rate; text messages close to $1 each for tweet-length content
– 3 out of 4 people held in local jails have not been convicted and are legally innocent, awaiting trial

The FCC Reversal
– $11.35 to $0.90: What the 2024 FCC rules would have reduced the cost of a 15-minute call from a large jail
– 83%: Increase in maximum phone rates for large prisons under October 2025 interim FCC rules ($0.06 to $0.11/minute)
– $215 million: Estimated additional annual cost to families from the October 2025 rate increase compared to the 2024 rules
– $0.02/minute: New “facility cost recovery” fee — a backdoor restoration of the commission system the 2024 rules banned
– Only 3 states (Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma) had rates above the new caps at time of adoption, meaning most facilities were already compliant with the lower 2024 rates

The Human Cost
– 1 in 3 families with an incarcerated loved one goes into debt to stay connected
– 87% of the financial burden is carried by women, disproportionately women of color
– 2.7 million children in the United States have an incarcerated parent
– Family spending can reach $500/month in extreme cases

The Free-Calls Alternative
– 6 states and New York City have eliminated phone charges entirely
– Massachusetts: call volume more than doubled after implementation
– New York: 45% increase in phone minutes in the first month; estimated annual cost of $9 million
– New York City saved families an estimated $10 million per year when it made jail calls free in 2019

The Corporate Crisis
– $1.3 billion: Debt Platinum Equity loaded onto Securus/Aventiv in its 2017 leveraged buyout
– 47 cents on the dollar: Value to which Aventiv’s bonds crashed by March 2024
– $360 million: Loan issued as part of Aventiv’s April 2025 distressed debt-for-equity restructuring that narrowly avoided formal bankruptcy
– $21.3 million: Settlement ViaPath/GTL agreed to pay in a price-fixing lawsuit
– $3 million: Amount ViaPath/GTL was ordered to pay for consumer protection law violations

Key Takeaway: Georgia families face a multi-layered extraction system: $0.06/minute calls, $0.20–$0.35 emails, $3.50–$6.50 money transfers, and $115–$135/month total, while the state collects $8+ million in annual kickbacks and has passed no reform legislation.

Context and Background

How the monopoly works: Correctional facilities award a single company the exclusive right to provide all communication services. The incarcerated person and their family have zero ability to choose a competing provider, negotiate rates, or refuse service without severing contact entirely. The “commission” or “kickback” system means the facility gets a percentage of every dollar charged — creating a direct financial incentive to award the contract to whichever company charges the most, not the least.

Who pays: The cost falls overwhelmingly on poor families, with 87% of the financial burden carried by women, disproportionately women of color. This is not a cost borne by people convicted of crimes — it is borne by their mothers, wives, partners, children, and communities. At county jails, 3 out of 4 people held have not been convicted and are legally innocent.

The private equity chain: Both dominant companies are owned by private equity firms that acquired them through leveraged buyouts — loading the companies with billions in debt that must be serviced through high rates. Securus’s owner, Platinum Equity, loaded the company with $1.3 billion in debt in 2017. The company needed to remain “unjustly and unsustainably profitable” to service that debt, leading to near-bankruptcy when regulators tried to lower rates. ViaPath faces $1.4 billion in debt coming due starting in 2025.

The regulatory whiplash: The FCC voted unanimously in July 2024 — including Trump-appointed Commissioner Brendan Carr — to cap rates at $0.06/minute for prisons and ban commission kickbacks. The rules took effect January 1, 2025. After the Trump administration’s FCC leadership change, the commission reversed course: first postponing the rules in June 2025, then raising the caps 83% in October 2025 through a party-line 2-1 vote. Commissioner Anna Gomez dissented, calling the action “indefensible” and accusing the FCC of “shielding a broken system that inflates costs and rewards kickbacks.”

The unregulated loophole: Email and e-messaging are explicitly excluded from FCC regulation under the Martha Wright-Reed Act. As phone and video call rates face caps, companies are aggressively shifting revenue extraction to unregulated tablet services — especially e-messaging at $0.20–$0.35 per message. Music on JPay tablets costs $0.99–$9.99 per song, with albums priced up to $46, compared to Spotify’s $10/month unlimited streaming.

The emerging alternative: Six states and New York City have made calls free, with dramatic results. Massachusetts saw call volume more than double. New York reported a 45% increase in phone minutes in the first month at an estimated annual cost of $9 million. The nonprofit Ameelio offers a model that charges correctional agencies instead of families. Even Securus’s own parent company CEO, Tom Gores, has acknowledged: “I think this industry really should be led probably not by private folks… but the nonprofit business, honestly.”

Georgia’s position: Despite ranking third nationally in kickback revenue, Georgia has passed no legislation to make calls free, further cap rates, or restrict commission practices. The Georgia General Assembly has not advanced any bills. Georgia’s Public Service Commission, which has regulatory authority over prison calls, last acted in 2017.

Key terminology for reporting:
– “Commission” / “site commission” = the percentage of revenue kicked back to the correctional facility
– “IPCS” = Incarcerated Persons Communication Services (the industry term)
– “JPay” = Securus subsidiary providing tablets, email, and money transfers in Georgia
– “Aventiv” = Parent company of Securus, owned by Platinum Equity
– “Martha Wright-Reed Act” = 2022 federal law expanding FCC authority to regulate prison phone and video rates

Key Takeaway: This story sits at the intersection of private equity exploitation, failed federal regulation, racial and gender justice, and Georgia legislative inaction — with clear accountability questions for state officials.

Story Angles

1. “The $8 Million Question: Where Does Georgia’s Prison Phone Kickback Revenue Go?”
Georgia collected $8,062,200.60 in commission kickbacks from prison phone revenue in a single year — third-highest in the nation. But where does that money go? The state has never publicly accounted for how this revenue is spent. An Open Records request to GDC could reveal whether the money funds correctional operations, general revenue, or other purposes. This angle has legs as an accountability investigation with a clear FOIA pathway, and it connects to the six states that have decided the moral cost of kickback revenue isn’t worth it.

2. “Legally Innocent, Financially Punished: Georgia County Jails Charge Up to 69% Commissions on Calls”
While Georgia state prison rates have dropped to $0.06/minute, county jails operate under separate contracts with dramatically higher costs: Glynn County charges a 69% commission rate and collects $300,000+ annually from 411 average daily prisoners; Chatham County charges $8 for a 20-minute video call. Three out of four people in these jails haven’t been convicted — they’re legally innocent, awaiting trial, and being charged premium rates to call their lawyers and families. A facility-by-facility survey of Georgia’s 159 counties would reveal the full scope of local extraction, and the contrast with state prison rates makes the inequity stark.

3. “The Company That Couldn’t Survive Fair Prices: How Private Equity Nearly Bankrupted Georgia’s Prison Phone Provider”
Securus Technologies — Georgia’s contracted prison phone provider — was loaded with $1.3 billion in debt by its private equity owner Platinum Equity. When the FCC tried to lower rates, the company’s bonds crashed to 47 cents on the dollar and it effectively defaulted. It narrowly avoided bankruptcy in April 2025 through a distressed debt-for-equity exchange. This raises urgent questions about Georgia’s contract: What happens to phone service if the provider goes under? Should the state renegotiate while the company is financially distressed? And should Georgia families be paying rates designed to service private equity debt rather than to provide communication at a fair price? Meanwhile, nonprofit provider Ameelio demonstrates the service can be provided at a fraction of the cost — and even Securus’s own CEO admits the industry “should be led… by the nonprofit business.”

Read the Source Document

The full GPS Investigative Research Brief — Prison Communications & Financial Exploitation: The Extraction Economy Behind Bars (February 2026) — is available here.

Other Versions

This briefing is part of a series covering GPS’s prison communications research for different audiences:

• Public Version — Plain-language explainer for community members and families
• Legislator Version — Policy brief for Georgia lawmakers and staff
• Advocate Version — Detailed analysis for attorneys, organizers, and coalition partners