Communications & Technology

The Duopoly Behind the Wall: Securus, JPay, and Aventiv

Georgia's prison communications run through a single corporate family. The Georgia Department of Corrections contracts with Securus Technologies for phone services and with JPay — a Securus subsidiary — for tablets, email, and money transfers [#1654]. Securus is a subsidiary of Aventiv Technologies, owned by Platinum Equity, the private-equity firm founded and controlled by billionaire Tom Gores, who also owns the Detroit Pistons. Aventiv is likewise parent of JPay and AllPaid, and is headquartered in Plano, Texas [#1661].

The ownership chain is the product of two decades of leveraged acquisition. In 2004, H.I.G. Capital bought T-Netix and merged it with Evercom to create Securus Technologies [#1663]. Castle Harlan paid $440 million for the company in 2011 [#1664], ABRY Partners paid $640 million in 2013 [#1665], and Platinum Equity acquired it in 2017 — reported at approximately $1.5 billion in one collection [#1666] and $1.6 billion in another [#5383], a discrepancy worth flagging — taking on more than $1.3 billion in debt to finance the buyout [#1667]. That debt load is now the company's central fact. S&P downgraded Securus/Aventiv to CCC- in October 2023, Moody's rated it junk that November, a distressed debt exchange followed in December 2023, a SPAC deal failed, and the company effectively defaulted in April 2024 [#5403][#1671]. In April 2025 it announced a distressed debt-for-equity exchange that eliminated most outstanding debt in return for equity — meaning Platinum Equity's creditors take ownership — alongside a $360 million new loan, subject to FCC approval [#1673]. Securus reported approximately $700 million in annual revenue at a 51 percent gross profit margin [#5384][#5385], but its debt has traded as low as 8 cents on the dollar [#5390], raising direct questions about continuity of service for Georgia's phone system and managed-access installations if the company fails [#5404].

The market is effectively a duopoly. Securus and ViaPath Technologies (formerly GTL, rebranded in 2022 [#1676]) together control approximately 80 percent of U.S. prison telecommunications [#1651], serving roughly 3,450 correctional facilities and 1.1 million incarcerated people [#1652][#1653]. ViaPath has its own private-equity lineage — Veritas Capital and Goldman Sachs bought its predecessor for $345 million in 1999 [#1790], American Securities paid about $1 billion in 2011 [#1791] — reported $654 million in revenue in 2019 [#1677], and carries $1.4 billion in debt maturing from 2025 [#1678]. It was ordered to pay $3 million in 2025 for consumer protection violations [#1679] and settled a price-fixing suit with the Human Rights Defense Center for $21.3 million [#1680], in a case alleging Pay Now rates of $14.99 per 15 minutes and Text2Connect at $9.99 per 10 minutes [#5415][#5429].

Nationally, the communications industry built on this structure is a $1.4 billion annual extraction machine in phone calls alone [#1650][#941]. Nineteen prison systems draw revenue from communications kickbacks on telephone, email, and video fees [#8239]. The incentive structure is explicit: percentage-based commissions reward officials for approving higher prices, because higher prices produce higher facility revenue [#934]. Tom Gores himself told an interviewer: 'Ultimately, I think this industry really should be led probably not by private folks. I think it probably should be — I'll get killed for saying this — but the nonprofit business, honestly' [#1768] — a statement from the owner of the largest vendor in the market. Worth Rises, which blocked a proposed Securus/ICSolutions merger in 2018 [#1773] and pressured a Pennsylvania pension fund to decline a $150 million investment in Securus in 2023 [#1774][#5392], describes the model bluntly: Aventiv 'must be unjustly and unsustainably profitable to service their debt and generate the returns private equity investors demand' [#1788].

The Georgia Contract: 59.6 Percent on Every Dollar

Georgia's original inmate-phone contract with Securus is dated September 21, 2016, with a first amendment effective January 1, 2017. GDC received a $4,000,000 one-time incentive and a 59.6 percent commission on call revenue, subject to a $325,000 per month floor, with calls priced at approximately 13 cents per minute — roughly $1.95 for a 15-minute call — at signing [#8327][#5395][#5394]. The commission rate is among the highest in the nation against a national average of roughly 43 percent [#5393], and it produced $8,062,200.60 in the 2019 fiscal year [#5396][#1655] — the third-highest commission revenue of any state [#1655] — and total commissions of $7.04 million in 2022 [#5397]. GDC receives more than $8 million a year in Securus kickbacks at that 59.6 percent rate [#5380], revenue that flows into an allocation the department has never publicly explained [#1781].

The flow is circular, not merely extractive. Families pay Securus for calls; Securus keeps 40.4 percent and remits 59.6 percent to GDC as commission; GDC then pays Securus for managed-access and forensics services; Securus blocks contraband phones, which forces incarcerated people back onto Securus paid phones; more calls generate more revenue for both parties [#5412]. The contract also bundled surveillance capacity at no additional charge — Investigator Pro voice biometrics, Location Based Services real-time tracking, THREADS data analysis, ICER inter-facility detection, and MAS at Autry State Prison [#5400] — plus a Forensics Lab at $68,000 per month, or $816,000 per year, staffed with two intake specialists, three digital forensics technicians, six intelligence analysts, a MAS intelligence analyst, and an intelligence operations program manager [#5399]. Location Based Services, according to ACLU documentation, can obtain real-time location data for 'virtually any individual in the country' without warrant verification; a Missouri sheriff used it to track judges [#5416][#5427]. A 4 percent Location Validation Fee is charged on all prison phone bills whether or not location tracking is used [#5417].

Georgia's rate history shows the state has largely been a follower, not a reformer. Georgia's commission rate was 46 percent as of 2000 data [#1723]. The Public Service Commission allowed $2 surcharges on top of per-minute charges in 2009 [#1691], capped local calls at $0.18 per minute in 2016 [#1692], and limited in-state non-local charges and commissions in 2017 — after which it took no further action [#1693].

Current pricing reflects the 2024 federal caps rather than state policy. As of September 2025, GDC state prison calls cost $0.06 per minute for local, long-distance in-state, out-of-state, and international calls, plus taxes and regulatory fees on international calls [#1656][#1719]. A 25-minute maximum-length call costs $1.50 [#1721][#1720], and one such call a day would cost a family about $45 per month [#1722]. Georgia families maintaining regular contact — phone, email, money transfers, video, entertainment — are estimated to spend $115 to $135 per month [#1752], with extreme cases reaching $500 per month [#1751]. Before reform, families paid as much as $1 per minute, with a 20-minute call costing $8 or more [#942]. One collection still lists Georgia Securus rates as local $0.13, in-state $0.16, and interstate $0.21 per minute [#5398]; those figures describe the earlier contract era and should be read against the current $0.06 rate, which is compliant with the FCC cap rather than the product of Georgia legislation [#1656].

The non-phone charges are where the regulated/unregulated gap shows. JPay email stamps cost $0.20 each in 50-stamp packs and $0.35 at the standard rate [#1657][#1658][#1801]; photo attachments cost an extra stamp and videograms an extra three [#1725][#1726]. Money transfers cost $3.50 to $6.50 depending on amount [#1659] — a $3.50 fee on a $20 transfer is a 17.5 percent surcharge [#1730], and the maximum single deposit is $200 [#1733]. Incarcerated people can move money from trust accounts into Securus calling accounts only in $1 increments [#1795]. Music runs $0.99 to $9.99 per song and up to $46 per album against a $10-per-month Spotify subscription [#1728]; e-books are $0.99 to $19.99 [#1741]; GTL/ViaPath charged $24.99 per month for tablet games [#1740]; a tablet with music and games purchased can exceed $500 in value [#5794].

Who absorbs these costs is not incidental. Eighty-seven percent of the financial burden of prison communications is carried by women, disproportionately women of color [#1749]. One in three families goes into debt to stay connected [#1748][#925], and families report forgoing food, medical care, and utility payments to maintain contact [#1796]. 'I send $75 for commissary, and $40 for phone calls,' said Teresa, whose son is at Dooly. 'When I can't afford it, I feel like I've failed him all over again' [#5357]. Susan Stokes, on disability income, spends $50 per month on calls: 'I do without a lot, but his needs and care come first' [#5361]. Army veteran S'hantel Butler put the design plainly: 'You're minimizing how much the prisoners can do, and you're maximizing the profits' [#1784]. The pattern is not new: a 1981 study of Georgia women prisoners found a monthly call allowance in which the family had to accept the charges [#15798], 26 percent telephoning their children weekly, 22 percent never calling at all [#15666][#15649], and some with no telephone available to their children at all [#15650].

County jails can be worse. Glynn County runs a 69 percent commission on its Paytel contract — the highest in coastal Georgia — averaging 411 daily prisoners and collecting more than $300,000 annually in phone and tablet fees, with rates of $0.18 to $0.21 per minute [#1683][#1685][#1736]. Chatham County has a 52 percent commission rate and charges $8 for a 20-minute video call [#1686][#1687]. Liberty County has a 50 percent commission on its HomeWAV contract, where text messages cost close to $1 each [#1688][#1738]. A family with a loved one in a Georgia county jail could pay three to four times what state prison families pay [#1792]; at Bulloch County jail, one college student reported spending half her weekly paycheck on phone fees, on top of a $3.00 deposit fee [#1800][#1737].

$50 Million of Managed Access: Machinery, Vendors, and Opacity

Georgia has spent approximately $50 million through FY2026 deploying Managed Access Systems, expanding coverage from 23 to 27 facilities [#5476][#5477][#5379][#5337]. The $35,027,675 managed access and drone detection appropriation in amended FY2025 is the single largest technology line item in the department, covering all 35 operational state prisons [#3520][#3585][#5517], and an additional $13,387,475 was allocated in AFY2026 [#5518][#3018][#5532]. Drone detection alone was allocated $966,000 [#5519]. GDC has operated AeroDefense's AirWarden drone detection system since December 2017 — selected and deployed by Securus — at 25 locations as of September 2025 [#3555][#3557].

Three vendors hold FCC Contraband Interdiction System licenses at Georgia facilities: Trace-Tek/ShawnTech at 28, CellBlox/Securus/Aventiv at 4, and Hawks Ear Communications at 3 [#5478][#3540][#3542]. CellBlox's Georgia presence dates to a 2014 managed-access pilot at a maximum-security facility; Securus acquired CellBlox's assets in January 2015 and subsequently invested more than $40 million in managed access technology, including patents, Vanu Tactical, and cellXion [#3545][#3544][#5388]. ShawnTech/Trace-Tek claims to hold 86 percent of all FCC CIS licenses nationally [#5484][#5405].

Technically, MAS creates a private cellular network that mimics commercial carriers, identifies connecting devices by IMEI/IMSI, checks a whitelist, and blocks unauthorized devices [#5482]. It cannot see the content of calls or messages made on contraband phones — only identify and block device signals [#5473]. That limitation matters because blocking is what the state bought: Trace-Tek operates a 'Cellular Denial of Service' program that permanently disables contraband phones, marketed as bypassing the warrant process [#3546][#5406]. More than 4,000 devices have been permanently disabled this way, and no lawsuit has yet tested the practice [#5483][#5418]. The FCC's CIS framework, established under a 2024 Second Report and Order, created the first legal structure for managed access — requiring carriers to lease spectrum and allowing operators to capture and deny service to unauthorized phones [#3591].

The procurement record behind this spending is missing. No RFP, sole-source justification, or contract award was found on the Georgia DOAS registry or Team Georgia Marketplace for any of the three MAS vendors — 35 facility contracts worth tens of millions of dollars with zero procurement transparency [#5496]. The specific procurement vehicle for the $35,027,675 deployment is likewise not publicly visible [#3570]. The vendors themselves resist scrutiny. Hawks Ear Communications, operating at Hancock, Phillips, and Valdosta state prisons, is a two-person operation with no physical office: Roger Banks, listed as manager, also runs a windows-and-door company, the Fort Lauderdale address is an entertainment/IP lawyer's office, and the Atlanta address is a Regus virtual office [#5493][#5408]. It has no website, no track record, and no deployed product [#5409]. It received an FCC experimental license in 2019 to test near Hancock State Prison, but equipment was listed as 'TBD' and the license was never granted [#5494][#5410]; the company did not obtain CIS Phase One certification until March 2025, meaning it operated at Georgia facilities without FCC certification for years, and no procurement records explain how its contracts were awarded [#5495][#5411][#3590]. Trace-Tek's website is a single-page GoDaddy site with almost no corporate information despite holding 28 Georgia CIS agreements [#3580], and the company's FCC certification came in March 2024 [#3589][#5485]. One flagged red flag: Ioannis Kormpis is connected to both Trace-Tek LLC and Kainotomia Systems [#5487].

The results do not match the spending. Phone-related incidents in Georgia prisons rose from 8,966 in 2019 to 10,578 in 2023 to a record 11,880 in 2024, with 23,623 total incidents from 2019 through 2025 [#5507][#5336]. Georgia has confiscated more than 37,000 contraband phones since 2022, averaging about 1,300 per month [#5481][#2912][#5334], including more than 15,500 in 2024 alone [#1769], against an estimated 20,000-plus phones inside at any given time [#5508]. VOIP technology bypasses carrier-based blocking, so calls continue even when a device is identified [#5441], and phones are replaced faster than they can be blocked through drone delivery and staff smuggling [#5442]. Staff are a documented channel: more than 360 staff have been arrested for smuggling since 2018 [#5419], one correctional officer received $150,000 for smuggling 150 phones [#5420], and the warden at Smith State Prison was arrested in connection with a smuggling ring [#5537]. MAS whitelists staff phones but also detects unauthorized staff phones in housing units — yet no evidence was found that MAS data has ever been used for staff accountability [#5421][#5422].

The Violence Record and the Scams That Slipped Through

The timeline of managed access deployment in Georgia tracks a documented pattern: every confirmed MAS activation was followed by significant violence within two to seven weeks [#5500][#5356][#5358]. Dooly State Prison's MAS was activated approximately July 26, 2025; a riot followed on September 11, 2025, 47 days later [#5497][#5354]. Washington State Prison received MAS in late December 2025; on January 6, 2026, GDC cut off a statewide WiFi workaround that had been the last communication channel for hundreds of blacklisted phones, an instantaneous and statewide cutoff [#5499]; five days later, the deadliest incident occurred. Ahmod Dewayne Hatcher died January 11, 2026, at Washington State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as homicide and his age as 23 [#5359]. Marquis Reshawn Jefferson died May 11, 2022, at Washington State Prison; GPS's registry lists the cause as homicide and his age as 26. Five people died at Washington State between January 9 and 11, 2026 [#5498][#5499]. The facilities with the highest homicide counts — Smith (17), Macon (17), Telfair (8), Hancock (8), Phillips (7), Valdosta (7), Ware (7) — all have a CIS vendor operating MAS [#5506]; Macon State Prison was the deadliest single facility in 2024 with at least 9 homicides [#5492][#5491].

Statewide homicide numbers rose sharply through the rollout: from 31 in 2022 to 38 in 2023 to 66 in 2024 as reported by GDC [#5479]. GPS's own database confirms 45 of the 2024 homicides and 51 in 2025, with 23 already confirmed in the first quarter of 2026 [#5503][#5504][#5505]. Total deaths in Georgia prisons hit a record 333 in 2024, 27 percent above 2023 [#5480][#5352].

The scam record is the clearest evidence that blocking did not accomplish its stated purpose. None of the documented major phone scam operations from Georgia prisons were stopped by MAS; all were discovered after the fact [#5436]. A phone-based fraud from Calhoun State Prison produced $464,920 in documented losses from 119 identified victims across six or more states [#5433]; over 50 people were indicted in a jury-duty scam originating at Autry State Prison, including 15 corrections officers [#5431]; a single inmate at Telfair State Prison stole $3.5 million through phone-based fraud [#5432]; over $560,000 was extorted from more than 440 military members in a sextortion ring [#5435]; and more than $500,000 was stolen in Iowa romance scams traced to Calhoun using drone-delivered phones [#5434]. Joey Amour Jackson and Lance Riddle were convicted on January 9, 2026 for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, using contraband phones and VOIP to spoof police numbers nationwide from Calhoun State Prison [#5438]. Calhoun has the highest contraband rate in the state — 62 mentions in GDC press releases — despite having a Trace-Tek MAS system installed [#5437].

The unintended consequences extend beyond crime. At Macon State Prison, inmates dialed 911 from contraband phones by exploiting the MAS 911 passthrough requirement — 204 emergency calls in 2024, none legitimate, which overwhelmed and shut down the 911 center serving 13 Georgia counties [#5512]. During MAS deployment Phase 2, heart monitors and wireless medical devices stop functioning, which the research collection flags as a potential Eighth Amendment issue under Estelle v. Gamble [#5501]. The dog that did not bark is South Carolina: after MAS deployment, legitimate phone calls there increased 68 percent — but assaults also rose 68 percent between 2013 and 2017, and homicides went from 1 to 12, with a 25 percent guard vacancy rate identified as the primary driver of violence [#5527]. Mississippi's Parchman, the first MAS installation in the country in 2010, blocked 10,600 call attempts in 24 hours and reduced unauthorized calls from 20,043 in Year 1 to 393 in Year 3 [#5528][#5529]. Georgia's own numbers moved in the opposite direction.

If gang leaders use contraband phones to maintain order, blocking creates a power vacuum. The DOJ found in October 2024 that 'Gangs control multiple aspects of day-to-day life in the prisons we investigated, including access to phones' [#5366][#5342]. MAS disrupts that control structure without replacing it [#5342]. And because MAS cannot hear what is said, Georgia loses the intelligence that interdiction was supposed to generate: when a phone is blocked, the state cannot analyze a network, build a case, or intercept a specific crime, and drone coordination calls that could be detected by AI monitoring go unheard [#5341][#5375].

Monitor, Don't Block: The Alternative and Its Arithmetic

Georgia law does not require the current approach. O.C.G.A. § 42-5-18 prohibits items 'without the authorization of the warden or superintendent or his or her designee' — it bars unauthorized phones, not phones as such, and wardens already hold statutory authority to authorize telecommunications devices [#5453]. Georgia has exercised that authority before: since July 1, 2016, all 13 Transitional Centers, with roughly 2,344 residents, allow personal cell phones. Residents buy their own phones and use them freely, staff may search at any time under a signed waiver, and records are kept of phone numbers, SIM cards, and carriers [#5443]. GDC research shows Transitional Center residents are up to one-third more likely to succeed in a crime-free life than other released inmates [#5445]. When GDC tried to restrict those phones in May 2022, backlash forced a reversal [#5446]. Commissioner Homer Bryson's earlier rationale for the policy was that 'we believe it is important that they begin learning the responsible use of technology' [#5444].

The technical case is already installed. Tecore's iNAC MAS system documentation states that 'pre-authorized device activity is passed on to commercial network(s)' — the system already distinguishes authorized from unauthorized devices, meaning a shift from blocking to monitoring is a configuration change rather than a redesign [#5451]. Georgia has already contracted with LEO Technologies for AI-based phone monitoring using AWS cloud with speech-to-text, semantic analysis, and machine learning; that capability has solved cold homicides, prevented suicides, disrupted trafficking, and built RICO cases [#5469][#5340][#5339]. The argument is summarized in the research as: blocking a phone yields a phone number; monitoring yields a criminal case [#5470]. Blocking destroys intelligence; monitoring builds it [#5341].

The cost model favors monitoring. Current blocking costs approximately $443 to $556 per inmate per year net of kickbacks, while monitored access costs approximately $583 to $646 — a marginal premium of roughly $90 to $100 per inmate per year [#5458][#5457][#5459]. Implementing a monitor-not-block system across Georgia prisons is estimated at a one-time marginal cost of $5 million to $7 million [#5475]. Set against that, family contact through phone access reduces recidivism by 13 to 25 percent [#5461], and even a 5 percent reduction would mean 2,350 fewer people returning to prison and $73.5 million in annual savings — dwarfing the implementation cost [#5460][#5351]. GPS's own summary of the tradeoff: for an additional $90 per inmate per year — less than the price of a single contraband phone — Georgia can switch from a system that produces no intelligence and a record of violence to one that catches scammers, intercepts hit orders, prevents suicides, maintains families, and saves $73.5 million in reduced recidivism [#5472].

No legislation is required. GPS proposes a three-phase strategy — a single-facility pilot, data publication, then system-wide expansion — resting entirely on warden authorization under O.C.G.A. § 42-5-18 [#5471][#5454]. The commissioner issues a policy directive, wardens formally authorize registered devices, phones are logged by IMEI, SIM, and carrier, MAS routes authorized devices through AI monitoring, and unauthorized devices remain blocked [#5454].

The comparative evidence is strong. The UK installed in-cell landline phones in 20 prisons by 2018 with a target of 50 by March 2020 at a cost of £10 million; calls are restricted to pre-approved numbers and all are recorded [#5310][#5311][#5313]. Over 50 UK prisons now have in-cell phones and report 39 percent less reoffending [#5447]. Finland legally extended digital rights to all prisoners in 2015, treating digital access as a rehabilitation tool, and is expanding its Smart Prison model — personal devices with monitored internet, email, and video — to all 15 closed prisons at two per year [#5314][#5316][#5448]. Norway guarantees a minimum of 30 minutes of phone access per week with video calls available and internet in some facilities, and has a 20 percent recidivism rate against the U.S. rate of 43 percent [#5317][#5449]. The U.S. is an outlier in treating phone access as a privilege to be denied rather than a tool to be managed [#5377]. Family contact research supports the same direction: a 1972 California study found inmates with three or more visitors were 70 percent arrest-free after release versus 50 percent with none, and 'loners' were six times more likely to return [#5344][#5345]; Minnesota's 2011 study of 16,420 prisoners found any visit reduced felony reconviction by 13 percent and parole violations by 25 percent [#5347]; a 2014 study found phone contact had a stronger effect on recidivism than visitation [#5349]; a 2019 Iowa study found one additional monthly visit reduced misconduct by 14 percent [#5348].

The opposing path is federal jamming. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr has led coalitions of 22 to 31 state attorneys general seeking authority to jam cell phone signals in prisons [#1770], joining a 22-state coalition in January 2023 [#5513] and leading a 23-state coalition in January 2026 while running for governor [#5516][#5414]. The 2024 Georgia Senate Study Committee recommended advocating federal approval for cell phone and drone jamming [#2976], noting the federal government jams in its own prisons but does not permit states to do so [#2884][#7520]. Carr's framing: 'Prisoners with contraband cell phones are ordering murders' [#5455]. If jamming is approved, it would eliminate the need for private MAS vendors entirely and potentially render the ecosystem obsolete [#5430]. The FCC adopted a jamming proposal on September 30, 2025 [#5515]. The counter-argument from advocates is structural: 'Cell phone jammers don't stop violence. They don't protect officers. They don't respond to riots, stabbings, or medical emergencies. Staff does. You can't jam your way out of a staffing crisis' [#5365].

Rate Caps, Federal Retreat, and Georgia's Inaction

The regulatory floor beneath all of this came from a grandmother. The fight for affordable prison phone rates began in 2000, when Martha Wright filed suit alongside other families and the Center for Constitutional Rights against Corrections Corporation of America [#1694]. In December 2022, Congress passed the bipartisan Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, signed by President Biden on January 5, 2023, expanding FCC authority to regulate phone and video calls from prisons and jails and requiring 'just and reasonable' rates [#1695][#944][#8332].

On July 18, 2024, the FCC voted unanimously — including Trump-appointed Commissioner Brendan Carr — to adopt sweeping new rules [#1696]. Phone rate caps were set at $0.06 per minute for state and federal prisons and large jails, $0.07 for medium jails, $0.09 for small jails, and $0.12 for very small jails [#1697][#1698]. For the first time, video calls were capped, at $0.16 per minute for prisons and $0.11 to $0.25 for jails [#1699]. All site commission kickbacks — an estimated $460 million annual revenue stream to correctional facilities [#1700][#1682] — were banned, as were ancillary fees including account funding fees, paper billing fees, live agent fees, and third-party transaction fees [#1701]. The rules also specifically prohibited charging incarcerated people and their families for the cost of monitoring technology, finding it serves 'discretionary needs of the facility' and is not 'used and useful' to the consumer [#1747]. The projected effect: a 15-minute call from a large jail falling from $11.35 to $0.90 [#1702], $500 million in annual family savings, and nearly 2 billion additional call minutes a year [#1703][#1704]. When Securus and Pay Tel sought a stay, the First Circuit rejected it in November 2024 [#1708]. Fourteen Republican attorneys general sued, specifically opposing the elimination of site commissions [#1706].

Then came the reversal. On June 30, 2025, the new Republican-majority FCC announced a two-year postponement of the 2024 rules, citing 'implementation challenges' and 'safety/security concerns' — formalized as waiver order DA 25-565, pushing compliance to April 1, 2027 [#1709][#8334]. On October 30, 2025, the FCC voted 2-1 along party lines to adopt 'interim' caps that raised the large-prison rate to $0.11 per minute, an 83 percent increase over the 2024 rules, and set video at $0.23 per minute for large facilities and up to $0.41 for small ones [#1711][#1713]. A $0.02 per minute 'facility cost recovery' additive was layered on top — effectively a backdoor restoration of the commission system the 2024 rules had banned [#1714]. Worth Rises estimated the new caps would cost families an additional $215 million per year compared with the 2024 rules [#1716]. Commissioner Anna Gomez dissented, calling the order 'indefensible' and stating that the Commission was giving 'monopoly companies facing zero competition, the authority to increase the costs for families to maintain critical connections with their loved ones in prison' [#1785][#1710][#947]. Bianca Tylek of Worth Rises called the changes 'a betrayal of the families who entrusted the FCC to protect them from the notoriously predatory correctional telecom industry' [#1782]. Public interest groups including Worth Rises, UCC Media Justice, and the Benton Institute filed applications for review [#1799], and the FCC opened a new rulemaking on December 5, 2025 with comments due January 5, 2026 [#1718].

The gaps in regulation are structural. E-messaging is not regulated by the FCC; the Martha Wright-Reed Act carved it out because it is not classified as audio or video communication, so there is no federal limit on what companies can charge [#1729]. As caps have been imposed on phone service, companies have bundled regulated phone service with unregulated services — messaging, tablet features, games — to evade them [#995][#1003]. Securus pushed tablet adoption and content sales in 2024 precisely as it faced potential bankruptcy, as a strategy to shift revenue from regulated phones to unregulated tablets [#1798].

Georgia's own posture is inaction. The state has taken no legislative action to provide free calls or further reduce rates, despite ranking third nationally in kickback revenue; no bills have advanced in the General Assembly [#1762]. Six states and New York City have eliminated phone charges: Connecticut (the first, effective October 2022, on an $11.2 million state allocation and $12 million in annual family savings), California (September 2022), Massachusetts (December 2023, the first to include all local jails in addition to state prisons, and the fifth state overall), Minnesota (2023), Colorado (phasing to 100 percent free by July 2025), and New York [#1753][#5320][#5324][#5325][#5327][#5326][#1754][#950][#1004]. New York made calls free administratively as of August 1, 2025 at an estimated $9 million annual cost — the first state to do so without legislation [#1757] — after NYC made jail calls free in 2019, saving families an estimated $10 million per year [#1759]. The volume response is consistent: Connecticut's monthly calls rose from 600,656 to 1,373,276, a 128 percent increase in the first month [#5321][#5450]; Massachusetts saw call volume more than double [#1755]; New York reported a 45 percent increase in phone minutes in the first month [#1758]. Minnesota, which has free calls, still collected $274,000 in 2023 from non-phone services [#1756]. Florida Governor DeSantis vetoed a $1 million pilot in 2023 that would have provided one free 15-minute call per month [#1761], and Missouri enacted a $0.12 per minute cap in August 2025 [#1760]. At least nine states prohibit commission-based telecom contracts outright [#949].

Georgia's replacement procurement is now open. Solicitation 46700-GDC0001179 was posted December 6, 2025 for comprehensive offender communications — phones, tablets, video, trust accounts — with a deadline of February 20, 2026, drawing on the NASPO master agreement's five eligible vendors: ViaPath, Securus, Advanced Technologies Group, ICSolutions, and Keefe Commissary Network [#5423][#5530][#1745]. Georgia joined that agreement in mid-2024 [#3594][#1743], and NASPO itself receives 1 percent of gross revenue from all products and services sold under it — another entity with a financial interest in maximizing charges [#1744]. The alternative nonprofit model exists but is absent from Georgia: Ameelio, founded in 2020 by two Yale students and funded by Jack Dorsey, Eric Schmidt, Vinod Khosla, and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, charges the corrections department rather than families and was adopted early by the Iowa Department of Corrections across all nine of its prisons, with Maine currently piloting its tablets [#1763][#1766][#1764][#1765][#1794]. Ameelio does not currently operate in Georgia [#1767].

Family Contact Rules, Litigation, and the Transparency Gap

The practical limits on contact are set by GDC Standard Operating Procedure 227.01. Each incarcerated person submits a call allow list of a maximum of 20 persons, and only calls to numbers on that list can be placed through the offender phone system [#19914][#19915]. The Georgia Public Defender Council's number counts against the 20 [#19916]. Revisions follow a six-month cycle keyed to the last digit of the person's identification number, with only one update permitted per designated month absent warden approval [#19919][#19920]. The SOP programs a 15-minute maximum on all calls [#19917] — which conflicts with the 25-minute maximum described elsewhere in the research record [#1720]; the page reports both rather than choosing one. In an emergency, the warden may disable the phone system for up to 24 hours, and the regional director for up to 48 [#19918]. The visitation list is capped at 12, five of whom are also selected for financials [#19921], and may only be changed when an offender arrives at a first permanent facility or during May and November [#19922][#19923].

The email restriction has been litigated and lost. Ralph Benning filed his action on March 9, 2018 [#19927]; it was not until the September 4, 2018 update to SOP 204.10 that GDC required offenders to communicate only with persons on their approved visitation list [#19928]. On November 18, 2024, the district court granted summary judgment and enjoined Commissioner Tyrone Oliver from enforcing SOP 204.10's email-contact restriction, while permitting GDC to continue screening emails and to prohibit multiple-recipient sends and other reasonable measures [#19933][#19932][#19934]. The court described the department's conduct as 'less than laudable' and found that 'this case evolved into quite the mess' [#19931]. There is, notably, no contact restriction on handwritten letters [#19930].

Compliance did not follow. Benning filed a motion in November 2025 alleging the GDC was 'willfully and intentionally' refusing to comply [#19935]. Judge Tilman E. 'Tripp' Self III summoned Commissioner Oliver to the witness stand to hear 'from my mouth... how little credibility the Department of Corrections has,' saying 'if the 11th Circuit tells me to do something, I just don't get the luxury of not doing it. I don't understand how you do' [#19936][#19939]. GDC's own lawyer acknowledged there were 'little to no excuse[s]' for non-compliance [#19937]. A directive was eventually sent to all wardens and superintendents to stop enforcing the email restriction — more than a year after the ruling, turned on 'sometime shortly after Christmas' [#19938][#19940].

The financial transparency is thinner still. Revenue from phone, tablet, and email charges via Securus/JPay in Georgia is not publicly disclosed [#1908]. The number of JPay tablets currently in use across GDC facilities, and the revenue breakdown by service type, has not been publicly reported [#1780]. The aggregate amount Georgia families pay across all communication services — phone, video, email, money transfers, tablet content — has never been publicly reported [#1778]. The full Georgia-Securus contract, including current commission percentage, total annual revenue, term dates, and renewal provisions, is not publicly available; the most recent publicly available amendment covers 2017-2021 [#1777], and the current renewed terms require an open records request [#8328]. How GDC allocates the more than $8 million in annual commission revenue has never been reported [#1781]. A systematic survey of telecom contracts, providers, rates, and commission rates across Georgia's 159 counties has not been conducted [#1779]. When GPS sought commissary-related records through the Inmate Welfare Fund — the opaque account into which commissions and kickbacks flow [#935] — GDC quoted $88,944 for the request [#1903]. In Georgia, welfare-fund reporting is required only upon suspicion of fraud, changes in personnel managing the fund, or extensive funding shortages; there is no routine reporting or audit schedule [#8249], and oversight committees have been documented as never meeting [#936].

The same opacity extends to technology. The GDC-OWL WiFi network, branded statewide prison WiFi, appears nowhere in any budget document, board minutes, or procurement record under that name; its vendor, cost, and technical specifications remain undocumented [#3572]. The $35 million managed access procurement vehicle is unidentified [#3570]. The Data Intelligence Advanced Integration system, funded at $1,950,000 in FY2026, has no public description beyond its budget line and a single mention in April 2025 board minutes [#3573][#3527]. The technology systems the OWL Unit commands — managed access, drone detection, cameras, body cameras, tablets, mail screening, and data intelligence — represent well over $150 million in combined spending across multiple fiscal years [#3517], built incrementally across overlapping appropriations since at least 2017 in a way that obscures the total investment [#3575]. The 2024 Georgia Senate Study Committee recommended asking the Department of Audits to review all contract renewals for the past five years for a pattern of runaway costs by any vendor [#2978][#7584]. That audit, if performed, would begin to answer the questions this record cannot: what Georgia families actually pay, what the state actually receives, and what, if anything, the $50 million in phone blocking has bought.