$13 for a Video Call. $25 for a Movie. Tablets Connect Prisoners—at a Steep Price.

In prisons and jails across the country, a bulky tablet enclosed in a screwed-on plastic case has become the hottest new device. Featuring limited online access, the tablets allow incarcerated people to make calls, send messages and watch movies from their cells. They also give prison telecommunication companies and correctional facilities another source of revenue when profits from phone calls, which have long been the industry’s principal business, are getting squeezed. In July, the Federal Communications Commission voted to slash the rates and fees that companies can charge for prison or jail phone calls and impose price caps on previously unregulated video calls. The rules, which will take effect next year, also outlaw site commissions, which are clauses in contracts that give a correctional facility or agency a portion of the revenue from calls. At large jails, a 15-minute phone call that previously could have cost more than $11 will now be at most 90 cents. The new caps will save incarcerated people and their friends, families and legal teams $386 million, according to the FCC. The new FCC rules regulate voice and video calls—whether they are made through wall phones or tablets—but not other services available on tablets, which companies have distributed in hundreds of jails and prisons over the last decade. Educational content on the devices is usually free, but e-messaging, music, ebooks and movies can cost prisoners significantly more than they would outside of confinement. While the FCC decision will prohibit site commissions from voice- and video-call revenue, correctional facilities and agencies can continue receiving portions of revenue from the e-messaging, entertainment and equipment that companies sell through their tablet programs. Securus Technologies and ViaPath Technologies, the two biggest providers of prison phone and tablet programs, say that by providing safe access to digital services, they enrich the lives of incarcerated people and improve the environment within facilities. Some advocates for prisoners say that tablet programs, like the phone-calling services before them, are exploitative because they charge high prices to incarcerated people, who often have almost no income and cannot choose between providers.