STATEMENT OF 
COMMISSIONER MIGNON L. CLYBURN
APPROVING IN PART, CONCURRING IN PART
Re: Promoting Technological Solutions to Combat Contraband Wireless Device Use in Correctional 
Facilities, GN Docket No. 13-111
I would like to begin by thanking Captain Johnson for your bravery, advocacy and willingness to 
share your powerful story with us today.  My deepest appreciation goes to you and those in law 
enforcement, particularly those too often underpaid, overburdened and underappreciated South Carolina 
correctional officers, who put their lives on the line each and every day. 
This past October, as part of our #ConnectingCommunities Tour, I visited the Essex County Jail 
in New Jersey, with Congressman Donald Payne Jr.  We met with correctional officers, inmates and their 
families, and toured the facility with the Deputy Director.  
We spoke at length about the costs of inmate calling services, the challenges faced by families 
struggling to keep in touch with their incarcerated loved ones, the positive dividends connectivity brings 
when it comes to inmate behavior and attitude, and the broader societal costs of mass incarceration.
Here are a few figures to consider:
? Fifty percent of those incarcerated were the primary breadwinner for their family;
? Sixty-five percent of families with an incarcerated member were unable to meet their 
family’s basic needs, and seventy percent of these families were caring for children under 
18;
? Forty-nine percent of families struggled to provide basic food for their family;
? Forty-eight percent had trouble meeting basic housing needs because of the financial 
costs of having an incarcerated loved one; and
? The high cost of maintaining contact with incarcerated family members led more than 
one in three families into debt to pay for phone calls and visits alone.
So when faced with a proposal that has the potential to increase inmate calling costs, I am, 
naturally, concerned.  I absolutely recognize and support correctional facilities’ desire, as well as their 
duty, to combat the contraband wireless device problem, in part, by installing Contraband Interdiction
Systems (CISs).
Contraband wireless devices are illegal, and are a safety threat, both to those behind, and outside 
prison walls. I wholeheartedly support this Commission doing all we can to help law enforcement 
combat the serious threat these devices, in the wrong hands, enable. 
The costs for implementing these systems, however, should be appropriately assigned and the 
economic burdens should not fall squarely on those families who are not at fault.  To that end, I asked the 
Chairman to require CIS operators to certify, as part of the application process, that the costs for the 
service would not be passed through to consumers of inmate calling services.  My request was rejected, 
and for that reason alone, I must concur in part.  
2I also asked the Chairman to make reference to, in the Order, the record evidence about the 
potential impact deployment of CISs may have on the rates inmates and their families pay to keep in 
touch.  While I am disappointed that the Chairman did not acknowledge the first request, I appreciate that 
he and Commissioner O’Rielly agreed to the latter.  
I am also grateful that my colleagues agreed to my request that the Commission institute some 
form of notice to consumers who reside near correctional facilities that choose to deploy CISs.  In 
particular, the newly established ombudsperson will be charged with maintaining a database of all 
deployed CISs in the country, and CIS operators will be required to notify the local community of such 
deployment 10 days before the activation of a new service.  I know on a personal level, that this notice 
will be much appreciated and beneficial to the surrounding community, because the park where I worked 
out frequently when I lived full time in Columbia, South Carolina, is a mere 1060 yards from a state, 
Level 1-B correctional facility.  
Once again, Captain Johnson, thank you for your selfless commitment to combating contraband 
wireless devices, and many thanks, of course, are due to the staff of the Wireless Telecommunications 
Bureau for your hard work on this item.