\u201c[Are we] going to stop crime before it happens because we\u2019re monitoring every utterance and thought of incarcerated people?\u201d Kendrick says. \u201cI think this is one of many situations where the technology is way far ahead of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Secrurus spokesperson said the tool “is not focused on surveilling or targeting specific individuals, but rather on identifying broader patterns, anomalies, and unlawful behaviors across the entire communication system.” They added that its function is to make monitoring more efficient amid staffing shortages, \u201cnot to surveil individuals without cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
Securus will have an easier time funding its AI tool thanks to the company\u2019s recent win in a battle with regulators over how telecom companies can spend the money they collect from inmates\u2019 calls.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the Federal Communications Commission issued a major reform, shaped and lauded by advocates for prisoners\u2019 rights, that forbade telecoms from passing the costs of recording and surveilling calls on to inmates. Companies were allowed to continue to charge inmates a capped rate for calls, but prisons and jails were ordered to pay for most security costs out of their own budgets.<\/p>\n
Negative reactions to this change were swift. Associations of sheriffs (who typically run county jails) complained they could no longer afford proper monitoring of calls, and attorneys general from 14 states sued<\/a> over the ruling. Some prisons and jails warned they would cut off access to phone calls.\u00a0<\/p>\n While it was building and piloting its AI tool, Securus held meetings with the FCC and lobbied<\/a> for a rule change, arguing that the 2024 reform went too far and asking that the agency again allow companies to use fees collected from inmates to pay for security.\u00a0<\/p>\n In June, Brendan Carr, whom President Donald Trump appointed to lead the FCC, said it would postpone all deadlines for jails and prisons to adopt the 2024 reforms, and even signaled that the agency wants to help telecom companies fund their AI surveillance efforts with the fees paid by inmates. In a press release, Carr wrote<\/a> that rolling back the 2024 reforms would \u201clead to broader adoption of beneficial public safety tools that include advanced AI and machine learning.\u201d<\/p>\n