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Wisconsin Bans Recording of Prison Phone Calls with Journalists

Loaded on July 1, 2026 published in Prison Legal News July, 2026, page 16
Filed under: Access to Media, Censorship, First Amendment, First Amendment, rights, Recorded Calls. Location: Wisconsin.

Although the state of Wisconsin can record prisoner’s phone calls freely, prisoners can face punishment for allowing other people, including journalists, to do the same. A policy from the state Department of Corrections (DOC) states that prisoners can not “allow their phone calls to be recorded by another party except for law enforcement purposes.” This policy extends to video calls.

As reported by Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), the current text of the phone call recording ban took effect in March 2020. And while the ban undermines the First Amendment rights of both prisoners and journalists, there is legal precedent supporting it, media law attorney Brian Spahn told WPR. The 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision Turner v. Safley, Spahn said, allowed a prison to restrict a prisoner’s First Amendment rights on the grounds of preserving prison security. See: Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987).

Nevertheless, claiming that a blanket ban on recording phone calls is necessary for prison security is a dubious defense, according to Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. “The DOC is a highly secretive agency, as government agencies go, and it regularly asserts that certain things can’t be shared, certain contacts can’t be made,” Lueders told WPR. “They can get away with almost anything (by) saying it’s necessary for prison security.”  

 

Source: Wisconsin Public Radio

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