The settlement also limits how much federal prisoners can be charged for phone calls; charges cannot exceed those of whichever state prison system has the highest rates. Overall the prisoners won major concessions from the BOP, a coup for a relatively powerless group. But many of these concessions are limited in some ways and the settlement itself lasts only four years.
The controversy arose in 1991, when the BOP began installing a new phone system at federal prisons across the country. For decades, federal prisoners had phoned friends and relatives collect. The new system allowed only direct calls, to be paid for by prisoners themselves and it permitted only a pre-approved list of callees.
An uproar ensued. Prisoners and their families complained that the new system unfairly discriminated against inmates without cash on hand. A group of prisoners filed a class action suit in July 1993 demanding a system that allows both collect and direct calls.
Info from The Reporter, August 1995