Free Calls For Inmates In MA Delayed By Healey In 2024 Budget

MASSACHUSETTS — The fiscal 2024 budget signed this week by Gov. Maura Healey contained some major policy shifts, like a mandate to make public school meals free and extending in-state college tuition to undocumented residents.

But Healey has delayed one big change in state law eliminating phone charges for calls to inmates in state and county facilities. Healey delayed implementation of the change until Dec. 1, sending it back to the Legislature among several other vetoes.

Healey delayed the implementation "to make sure the policy can be thoughtfully implemented and is affordable in FY24," her office said in a news release.

The law change, called "An Act to Keep Families Connected" in the Senate and "An Act Relative to Telephone Service for Inmates" in the House, is more generous than a plan Healey floated for inmate calls earlier this year. Healey sought to cap free calls to 1,000 minutes per inmate at state Department of Corrections prisons, and not extend the policy to county jails — facilities that hold a majority of inmates outside of state, federal and youth prisons in Massachusetts.

The calls cost families some $14 million in fees per year, according to the Keep Families Connected/No Cost Calls coalition. Fees range from 12 cents per minute for calls to state DOC inmates up to 14 cents at county jails. Calls to inmates in Massachusetts local jails are cheaper than the national average of about $3 for 15 minutes, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

Advocates for free calls say the private companies that provide telecommunications services to prisons and jails are "predatory," forcing families across the state to effectively pay a tax to communicate with family members.

"Not only will this help relieve some of the financial burden that has been solely on me while I try to keep our housing afloat so my partner has somewhere stable and safe to come home to, it will also help us maintain healthy mental and emotional connections that are fundamental in reducing rates of recidivism and keep him strong and safe until he can be released," coalition member Joanna Levesque, whose partner is at Old Colony Correctional Center, said in a news release this week after Healey signed the budget.

Massachusetts uses Texas-based Securus Technologies for prison telecommunications services. Fees vary between facilities, from $5 for 20 minutes to MCI Framingham inmates to $6.95 for 20 minutes to inmates at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility, according to the Securus website.

Federal prisons may soon have phone call costs lowered following the passage in January of the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act. The law gives the Federal Communications Commission the power to regulate in-state voice and video calls.

Connecticut became the first state to eliminate inmate phone call fees in 2021, and has been followed by California, Minnesota and Colorado.