Family Communication

Brief written August 30, 2026 from GPS Intelligence System data.(DS)

The Hidden Tax: What Georgia Families Pay to Stay Connected

Family communication in Georgia's prison system operates on a financial model that extracts revenue from the people least positioned to absorb it. The Georgia Department of Corrections' inmate phone contract with Securus (Aventiv), dating to September 21, 2016, with a First Amendment effective January 1, 2017, guaranteed GDC a $4 million one-time incentive and a 59.6 percent commission on call revenue, subject to a $325,000 per month floor. Calls ran approximately 13 cents per minute — roughly $1.95 per 15-minute call — and the commission structure yields approximately $8 million per year to GDC, according to GPS's analysis of the contract. The current renewed contract's exact terms require a Georgia Open Records Act request to GDC, and GPS has flagged this as an unresolved data gap.

This commission structure is not unique to Georgia, but it places the state squarely within a national pattern that advocates and researchers have documented extensively. The Ella Baker Center's "Who Pays?" study, based on surveys of more than 1,000 formerly incarcerated people and family members across 14 states, established the baseline understanding of how incarceration costs shift to families. A 2025 FWD.us report — a first-of-its-kind national survey of more than 1,600 people with incarcerated family members, developed with researchers at Duke University and NORC at the University of Chicago — found that 64 percent of family-incarcerated person pairs incur at least one direct expense related to incarceration. Among those who contribute, the median monthly direct expense is $172, representing 6 percent of household income. The burden falls unevenly: Black families contributing to incarceration costs spend a median of $200 per month (9 percent of household income); Hispanic families $230 per month (9 percent); and White families $120 per month. Mothers of incarcerated persons spend a median of $286 per month. Spouses and coparents spend a median of $276 per month, representing 12 percent of household income — the highest percentage of any relationship category. Women face a compounding burden: lost household income plus new expenses plus childcare plus emotional labor.

The commission-based contract model creates what researchers describe as perverse incentives. Commission-based contracts create an incentive for corrections officials to approve higher prices, as it directly increases facility revenue through percentage-based kickbacks. Commissions and kickbacks from commissary and telecom contracts flow into "Inmate Welfare Funds" — opaque accounts supposedly for incarcerated people's benefit — which corrections agencies use as shadow budgets free from legislative appropriation oversight. At least nine states prohibit commission-based prison telecom contracts: California, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. Five states — California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Colorado — have enacted laws requiring free communications in state prisons and/or jails. Georgia is not among them.

The Federal Regulatory Battle and Its Reversal

The federal government has moved repeatedly on prison communication costs, only to reverse course. The Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act was signed January 5, 2023 (Public Law 117-338), a bipartisan law that gave the FCC authority to regulate all prison communications rates. In July 2024, the FCC voted to implement phone caps of $0.06 per minute for prisons and large jails, $0.07 per minute for medium jails, first-ever video call caps of $0.11 to $0.25 per minute, banned site commissions (kickbacks), and banned ancillary fees. The rate-cap order FCC 24-75 was adopted July 18, 2024 and released July 22, 2024 in WC Docket 23-62, capping prison phone rates at 6 cents per minute effective January 1, 2025 for prisons and large jails and April 1, 2025 for smaller jails.

That framework collapsed under the new FCC Republican majority in 2025. The commission suspended the 2024 rules and approved higher "interim" rate caps: phone calls in large prisons from $0.06 to $0.10 per minute; small jails up to $0.18 per minute; plus a $0.02 per minute facility fee. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez stated the Commission was "shielding a broken system that inflates costs and rewards kickbacks to correctional facilities at the expense of incarcerated individuals and their loved ones." Bianca Tylek of Worth Rises stated: "Today, the Commission bent to the will of the industry that has spent decades exploiting the basic human need of incarcerated people and their families." On June 30, 2025, the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau issued waiver order DA 25-565 postponing compliance to April 1, 2027 — an up-to-two-year delay announced by Chairman Brendan Carr, with Commissioner Anna Gomez dissenting.

The financial stakes for Georgia families are documented in GPS's commissary analysis. The GDC commissary master list, covering 517 SKUs with FY2024 sales and 2025 pricing, shows markups ranging from 31 percent to 224 percent above contract price. Acetaminophen, 325 mg, 20 tablets carries a contract price of $0.54 and a retail price of $1.75 — a 224 percent markup. Ibuprofen, 200 mg, 24 tablets went from a contract price of $1.92 to a retail price of $4.00, a 108 percent markup with a 93 percent price increase in 2025. Koss Clear Headphones CL-20, the highest inmate-spend item at $125,317.16 in FY2024, carries a 31 percent markup. GPS's analysis of GDC commissary data identified $18.7 million in state profit from inmate commissary sales, and GPS has documented a 153-item discount reversal scheme in its commissary pricing analysis. The Appeal's nine-month investigation collecting commissary prices from 46 states found markups ranging from 40 percent to 600 percent above retail prices.

The Legal Fight Over Email and Digital Communication

The most significant legal development in Georgia family communication came through federal litigation. In Benning v. Oliver, Judge Self issued a 29-page order granting summary judgment on GDC's email contact restrictions, ruling that the 12-person email contact restriction violated the First Amendment. The court ordered GDC to cease enforcing the restriction. GPS's reporting documents that Judge Self subsequently held a hearing on GDC's non-compliance with the First Amendment email contact restriction order, indicating the agency did not immediately comply with the court's directive.

The legal framework surrounding family communication in Georgia is shaped by statute as well as litigation. O.C.G.A. § 17-17-12.1 establishes a victim's right to request not to receive mail from an inmate who was convicted of committing a criminal offense against such victim. O.C.G.A. § 42-9-18 requires the Parole Board to maintain a complete written record of every person contacting any member of the board on behalf of inmates — a transparency provision that creates a paper trail for family advocacy. O.C.G.A. § 16-11-39.1 defines harassing communications, including contacts via telecommunication, e-mail, text messaging, or any other form of electronic communication for the purpose of harassing, molesting, threatening, or intimidating. These statutes frame the legal boundaries within which family communication operates.

GPS has additionally received recurring reports of contact with family being severed at Baldwin State Prison, with five sources across three cases documenting this pattern between March and May 2026. GPS records show this as a high-severity concern at that facility.

Death Notification: The Ultimate Communication Failure

The most severe breakdown in family communication occurs when an incarcerated person dies. GPS's reporting has documented the case of Roy Mason Morris, whose family was notified of his death more than one year after it occurred. The family received notification from the Georgia Department of Corrections, but no death certificate or autopsy records were provided. This case sits within a broader pattern GPS has documented: GDC publishes guidelines on inmate death notification procedures and family rights, but the gap between policy and practice can span months or years.

The systemic context for these failures is documented in federal findings. The U.S. Department of Justice's 2024 investigation found unchecked gang control, routine sexual abuse, and deliberate staff indifference to violence in the Georgia prison system. The DOJ investigation documented GDC misclassification of homicides and concealment of violence. The DOJ confirmed Georgia prisons are dangerously understaffed, with single officers supervising 1,500 to 1,800 prisoners. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation documented deception in the Georgia prison system during crisis. GPS has independently tracked 1,887 deaths in GDC custody since 2020.

The infrastructure for family communication has also been systematically restricted. GPS's reporting documents that GDC disabled WiFi access statewide, cutting off a final inmate phone communication method. GDC deployed a Managed Access System (MAS) across 34 state prisons at a $50 million capital cost — a technology designed to block contraband cell phone signals but which also affects legitimate communication channels. Two inmates were convicted of running a nationwide wire fraud and extortion operation from Calhoun State Prison using contraband cell phones, which GDC has cited as justification for its communication restrictions.

The Parole Process and Family Advocacy

For families seeking to support a loved one's release, the parole process presents a distinct set of communication challenges. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles operates with a five-member board — a number unchanged since 1973, when the prison population was 9,000, despite the current population of approximately 50,000. The Board considered 19,328 cases in FY2024: 2,046 life-sentenced cases, 12,257 guideline cases, and 5,025 short sentence cases. In FY2024, the Board released 5,443 offenders from prison — 420 fewer than the previous fiscal year, continuing a decline from 10,429 releases in FY2019.

The parole process itself is opaque to families. Parole hearings are not held in Georgia. Each offender entering the Georgia prison system is interviewed by parole staff, but families have no opportunity to present directly to the Board except through written correspondence. The Board maintains a complete written record of every person contacting any member of the board on behalf of inmates, per O.C.G.A. § 42-9-18. Parole investigators collect details of conviction offenses, interview inmates and family members for Personal History Statements, and complete Post Sentence Investigations — meaning family input does enter the record, but through an investigator's filter rather than direct advocacy.

GPS has responded to this gap by launching the Parole Packet Builder, a free tool for Georgia families to support parole applications. GPS has also launched the Lighthouse App to provide incarcerated people and families with prison system resources, legal tools, and advocacy support. These tools represent a direct response to the structural barriers families face in navigating the parole process.

The financial dimension of parole is equally significant. The Parole Board's policy regarding supervision fees requires that each parolee pay only one type of fee, with court-ordered restitution going directly to the victim as the first priority, followed by payments to the Victims Compensation Fund, then parole supervision fees. In FY2014, $13,079,503 was collected in parole supervision fees, victim compensation, and restitution fees. The cost per day of incarceration versus parole supervision in FY2024 was $68.51 versus $2.89 — a differential that makes parole the fiscally rational choice, yet parole releases have declined for six consecutive years.

The Commissary Economy and Family Subsidization

The commissary system represents a parallel financial channel through which families subsidize the prison system. GPS's analysis of GDC commissary data identified $18.7 million in state profit from inmate commissary sales. The system totals for FY2024 show 7 SKUs tracked with 33,057 units sold, wholesale costs of $146,718.82, inmate costs of $192,079.45, and markup profit of $45,360.63 — a 30.9 percent markup. These figures represent only a fraction of the full 517-SKU commissary master list.

The markup structure falls hardest on basic necessities. Acetaminophen carries a 224 percent markup. Ibuprofen carries a 108 percent markup with a 93 percent price increase in 2025. Major Allergy Tablets carry a 117 percent markup. These are not luxury items; they are over-the-counter medications that incarcerated people purchase because the prison's medical system does not reliably provide them. A JAMA study from August 2024 found that prison systems with more expensive copays (relative to prison wages) limit access to healthcare for pregnant people and those with chronic conditions. The National Consumer Law Center found in September 2024 an inverse relationship between copay levels and healthcare utilization — higher copays deter treatment-seeking even for serious conditions. Forty states and the federal Bureau of Prisons charge medical copays ranging from $2 to $13.

The Science Advances study on prison wages and commissary prices captured the absurdity of this economy: if dinner is a $0.35 package of ramen noodles and you work for the federal minimum wage, it takes 3 minutes to earn it. If you are incarcerated and work for prison wages, affording that "cheap" dinner takes a full 2 hours. Families bridge this gap. Having an incarcerated family member reduced household assets by 64.3 percent and debt by 85.1 percent, according to Sykes & Maroto (2016) using Survey of Income and Program Participation data. Parental incarceration pushes even formerly non-poor children into poverty. Children of recently incarcerated fathers are three times more likely to experience homelessness, with paternal incarceration increasing risk of childhood homelessness by 94 to 97 percent even after adjusting for pre-existing family differences.

What Reform Looks Like

The reform landscape for family communication costs is uneven but moving. The Families Over Fees Act (2024), introduced by Senators Booker and Warren, would authorize the FTC to prohibit junk fees in prisons and jails, require upfront disclosure, and create legal protections for affected families. Illinois and New Hampshire repealed pay-to-stay laws in 2019; Missouri repealed in 2025; Connecticut reformed its pay-to-stay laws in 2022. Dauphin County, Pennsylvania forgave $65.9 million in former detainee debt in September 2024. In 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau penalized JPay for violating the Consumer Financial Protection Act, finding that JPay charged fees to access one's own money on prepaid debit release cards and required consumers to sign up for JPay debit cards as a condition of receiving government benefits. The CFPB order required $4 million in consumer redress and a $2 million civil penalty, with violations specifically documented in California, Colorado, and Georgia.

For Georgia families, the path forward runs through the courts, the legislature, and the regulatory process. The Benning v. Oliver ruling established that GDC's email restrictions violate the First Amendment. The FCC's rate caps, even in their suspended form, established the principle that prison communication costs must be reasonable. The Martha Wright-Reed Act gave the FCC permanent authority to regulate these rates. What remains unresolved is whether Georgia will follow the nine states that have prohibited commission-based telecom contracts, or the five states that have mandated free communications — or whether it will continue to extract $8 million annually from the families of incarcerated people.

Sources

This analysis draws on GPS's own investigative reporting and data analysis, including the GDC commissary master list and pricing investigation, the Securus contract analysis, and documentation of the Benning v. Oliver litigation; the Ella Baker Center's "Who Pays?" study; the FWD.us 2025 national survey; the State Board of Pardons and Paroles annual reports for FY2014 and FY2024; federal court rulings and FCC orders; the U.S. Department of Justice's 2024 investigation findings; and reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Inmate and family accounts collected by GPS staff inform the aggregate observations throughout.