Mass. sheriffs cut cost of prison calls

MASS. SHERIFFS CUT COST OF PRISON CALLS

June 21, 2021
CommonWealth Magazine
By Colin A. Young

Promise 10 minutes free, 14 cents a minute after that.

EVERY SHERIFF’S department in Massachusetts has agreed to provide people incarcerated at county jails and houses of correction with at least 10 minutes of free phone calls each week and to reduce the cost of subsequent calls, the Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association announced.

Currently, each county sheriff’s department can set its own cost for inmate telephone calls. The money raised is put towards educational programs, vocational skills training and other services designed to prepare inmates for re-entry into society. While the state Department of Correction charges 10 or 11 cents per minute for phone calls, some sheriffs have charged more than 40 cents per minute for calls, according to Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts.

In addition to making the first 10 minutes of phone calls each week free for inmates, the state’s 14 sheriffs also agreed to charge no more than 14 cents a minute after the initial 10 minutes expires.“My fellow Sheriffs and I know that contact with friends and loved ones is an essential component for preparing justice-involved individuals for successful reentry into society,” said Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins, who serves as president of the Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association. “This unanimous decision by the fourteen Sheriffs is reflective of our commitment to those in our care and custody. As the nature of corrections continues to evolve in the Commonwealth, we are proud to re-affirm our commitment to maintaining and strengthening familial bonds.”

The Massachusetts Sheriffs’ Association said the new policy will go into effect no later than August 1.

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Harsh prison rules punish the innocent

HARSH PRISON RULES PUNISH THE INNOCENT

December 14, 2019
The Boston Globe
Yvonne Abraham

Before, anyone could visit an inmate, as long as they passed an onsite background check. Now, only 8 or 10 designated family members and others are allowed to visit, after submitting to a pre-approval process so onerous it dissuades some from even trying. Approved designees may visit only one inmate in the system unless they receive special permission.

The new rules were meant to combat contraband in prisons, according to a Department of Correction spokesman, but did not provide data showing whether drug-smuggling is down. (There have been several cases of guards smuggling in drugs since then.)

Here’s what is down: visits across the system, by a quarter, in the first year, with one prison seeing a drop of 36 percent.

“They try to make it as awful as possible so that people don’t want to visit,” said Elizabeth Matos, head of Prisoners’ Legal Services, which has sued to overturn the new rules.

Restricting visits isn’t just inhumane, however: It compromises public safety. Studies show that inmates who maintain contact with family and friends behave better in prison, and are less likely to reoffend on the outside.

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Bills would pull the plug on sky-high jail phone costs

BILLS WOULD PULL THE PLUG ON SKY-HIGH JAIL PHONE COSTS

November 17, 2019
Daily Hampshire Gazette
Michael Connors

NORTHAMPTON — For some families whose loved ones are incarcerated, a 15-minute in-state phone call can cost up to $7.50.

That’s the going rate at the Franklin County House of Correction. In Hampshire County, the cost is cheaper at $3.15 per 15-minute call, according to a list of rates at prisons and jails across the state compiled by Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts and the Prison Policy Initiative, but advocates have long denounced the burden of telephone costs on inmates and their families.

On Beacon Hill, lawmakers have introduced two bills that would address these high costs.

“For many incarcerated people, the phone is a lifeline,” said Bonnie Tenneriello, an attorney with Prisoners’ Legal Services. “And the phone is especially a lifeline for their loved ones. The burden on prison families for phone use is tremendous.”

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Families want to end prison phone call charges

FAMILIES WANT TO END PRISON PHONE CALL CHARGES

They say steep costs burden efforts to maintain crucial connection

October 22, 2019
CommonWealth Magazine
Sarah Betancourt

AYANA AUBOURG MET her father Winchel Aubourg as an infant while he was behind bars for a drug-related crime. For the next 17 years, she spoke with him over the phone, and occasionally visited while he was held in facilities in Massachusetts and New Jersey. “You have no idea what receiving those phone calls meant for me,” Aubourg, now 25, told members of the state’s Criminal Justice Reform Caucus at a briefing on Tuesday.

The conversations were invaluable, she said, but they came at a steep cost. Inmates are charged for prison phone calls, and Aubourg said typical charges for two 20-minute calls each week from a prison inmate can approach $2,000 a year.

State Sen. William Brownsberger is looking to change that. The Senate co-chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary has introduced a bill to eliminate all charges for inmate phone calls.

According to Prisoners’ Legal Services, while eliminating charges for inmate calls would impose a cost on the state, without commissions and the need to track or recover charges to consumer accounts, the state would be able to contract for a much lower rate than currently, thus saving money.

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WGBH Greater Boston: Sustaining An Emotional Life Line For Those Behind Bars

WGBH GREATER BOSTON: SUSTAINING AN EMOTIONAL LIFE LINE FOR THOSE BEHIND BARS

While conversations about criminal justice reform have gained more traction recently, they generally have focused on issues of reducing the number of people sent to prison or jail. But advocates stress the need to also address conditions for those who are currently incarcerated, both from a concern for human rights, and from a desire to help reduce recidivism upon release. A hearing on Beacon Hill tomorrow will examine several bills that will seek to increase inmates’ connections with their loved ones so that they have an intact support network to return to: two bills that would make phone calls to inmates cheaper or free, and another that would loosen restrictions on who can visit inmates. Jim Braude was joined by Elizabeth Matos, the executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services, which is supporting the bill, and Ayana Aubourg, the co-founder of a local group for women affected by incarceration, Sisters Unchained, whose father was incarcerated for much of her childhood.

Costly Chicopee jail phone calls criticized; Officials say revenue provides educational services

MassLive
February 5th, 2019
AP

CHICOPEE, Mass. (AP) — Jennifer Thurston’s family spends up to $50 a week on phone calls to stay in touch with her while she is in custody. It’s a lot for a family struggling with poverty and poor health.

“My husband’s on disability,” said Thurston, an Adams woman serving time for embezzlement. “He doesn’t have a lot of money.”

Phone calls are sometimes the only comfort for families who live far from the Western Massachusetts Regional Women’s Correctional Center, run by the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department, where Thurston and other women from surrounding counties are held both before trial and while serving sentences.

But the calls are costly because they must be made through an outside company — much more costly than for people outside jails.

Highsmith and attorneys for Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts are among several groups representing four people in a class-action lawsuit against the Bristol County Sheriff, and Securus, the company that charges inmates 16 cents per minute, and $3.16 for the first minute, even for redials made after the first is disconnected.

Highsmith and other attorneys are pushing a consumer protection argument. They liken the setup to an illegal kickback scheme in which state institutions are indirectly extracting extra revenue by outsourcing with a private-sector company.

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American Sheriff

Fault Lines investigates the power of US sheriffs and allegations of prisoner neglect and abuse.

Sheriffs and their deputies account for one-quarter of all sworn law enforcement officers in the US.

But unlike police or the FBI, who have clear oversight and a chain of command holding them accountable, sheriffs are elected in often highly partisan elections.

Many sheriffs don’t have term limits, and once they are elected, there are very few checks on their power. They can only be removed when the public votes against them.

Watch the full video here.

Lawsuit targets high cost of phone calls from jail

South Coast Today
May 5, 2018
By Jennette Barnes 

In the days before her fiance’s suicide in jail, Fall River mental health clinician Kellie Pearson argued with him over the cost of his phone calls home.

“For Michael, I think that just put more pressure on him and made him feel worse,” she said.

Michael T. Ray was a big part of her life and their teenage daughter’s life, but the calls from the Bristol County House of Correction, at rates set by a jail contract, were a financial burden.

Now Pearson and three other plaintiffs are suing Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson and the telephone contractor, Texas-based Securus Technologies, alleging that the company’s payments to Hodgson’s office constitute “illegal kickbacks” and have nearly doubled the cost of inmate calls.

Lizz Matos, a staff attorney at Prisoners’ Legal Services, said they were able to file the lawsuit now because about 18 months ago, the phone provider wrote to the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Cable to exempt itself from regulation on the basis of being an Internet Protocol-enabled phone service. As an unregulated company, it can be sued, she said.

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Lawsuit challenges the high cost of calling from jail

The Boston Globe
May 4, 2018
By Maria Cramer

For the 95-year-old mother of one inmate, the high costs of taking phone calls from the Bristol County House of Correction forced her to choose between paying medical bills and talking to her son.

Pearson is among four plaintiffs, two of them inmates, who have sued Bristol County Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson and Securus Technologies Inc., a Texas-based company that provides phone services for inmates across the country, over the high phone rates. The lawsuit alleges that the sheriff office’s contract with Securus represented an illegal kickback scheme that has nearly doubled the cost of calls made from county jails.

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday by lawyers representing prisoners and consumer rights, alleges that between August 2011 and June 2013, Securus paid Hodgson’s office $1.7 million in exchange for an exclusive contract to provide phone services to inmates. It currently pays the sheriff’s office $820,000 a year.

The company offsets the high cost of the contract by overcharging friends, lawyers, and families of inmates who must set up accounts with Securus to get calls from their loved ones, according to the lawsuit.

“We’re hoping this [case] establishes a principle that these kinds of kickbacks should be illegal everywhere,” said Bonnie Tenneriello, a staff attorney with Prisoners’ Legal Services.

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Read the press release here.

Read the complaint here.