Letter to the Budget Conference Committee on No Cost Calls


Monday, July 27, 2022

Dear Chair Michlewitz, Chair Rodrigues, and members of the Committee:

I am writing on behalf of Progressive Massachusetts to thank you for your support of legislation that would keep families connected by eliminating the cost of phone calls for those who are incarcerated and for their loved ones. As you and the other members of the Conference Committee consider the FY23 budget reports, we urge you to consider that, to truly keep families connected, calls should be free, fully funded, and guaranteed.

We are proud to be among the 70 organizations, including legal service providers, public defenders, social workers, bar associations, and directly-affected people, that have advocated for No Cost Calls. We recognize that criminal legal reform is a racial justice issue and that mass incarceration disproportionately affects Black and Brown communities and people living in poverty. We understand that families often have to choose between staying connected to an incarcerated loved one and paying for necessities like rent or food—or risk going into debt.

We urge you to include the following essential pieces in the ultimate budget language:

Guaranteed Telephone Access

Currently, Massachusetts jails and prisons do not restrict how many minutes incarcerated people can talk to their loved ones each day. Calls are only limited by the cost. The Legislature must ensure that this current level of contact does not decrease once calls are free. Both the House and the Senate have approved language that aims to avoid new restrictions on access to phone calls. We urge you to bar any new caps on calls in order to maintain continuity and to guarantee at least 120 minutes per person per day.

Funding of Communication Services

We strongly support the House language creating a $20M Trust Fund dedicated to communication services. Upon proof of expenditures, the Fund would reimburse prisons and jails for their spending on communication services. That Trust Fund should be in the final FY23 budget, to take effect this year.

Prohibition on Commissions 

Both the House and Senate budgets address site commissions, i.e., payments made by phone companies to jails and prisons, taken from revenue paid by consumers. While some Sheriffs have said they need this money to provide programs, the House and Senate have agreed that low-income telephone consumers should not pay for programs in the jails and prisons. Instead, the Sheriffs should seek such funding through their budget requests, with full transparency and accountability, and the Legislature should ban site commissions.

Start Date

Families have shouldered the financial hardship of paying the high costs of maintaining contact with their incarcerated loved ones for too long. We respectfully request that you include fully funded, guaranteed No Cost Calls in the final FY23 budget, to take effect this year.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director Progressive Massachusetts





This Week: Take Action on Juvenile Justice Reform

What do eggs, lotion, and Slurpees have in common?

All of them have been deemed “dangerous weapons” in courts that made young people ineligible for judicial diversion to community supervision instead of incarceration.

This Thursday, the MA Senate will be voting on an important juvenile justice reform bill (S.2942) to expand opportunities for judicial diversion for youth, as well as another bill (S.2943) that eliminates the requirement that youth pay an $40 administrative bail fee as a condition of being released on bail.

The Senate also has the opportunity to strengthen these reforms by including an amendment (#4 to S.2942, filed by Sen. Pat Jehlen) to preserve the right to education of students who are accused of a felony offense allowing them to remain in school as long as their case has not moved towards an arraignment and that the felony be a “serious violent felony” before a student is suspended from school.

Can you contact your state senator in support of these reforms?

TOMORROW: Fair Share Canvass with Elizabeth Warren

Join Fair Share for Massachusetts and Senator Elizabeth Warren TOMORROW at 5:30 PM to canvass voters and spread the word to vote YES of Fair Share this November!

The kickoff will be at Lincoln Commons Park, Bryant and Cross Street, Malden.

RSVP HERE.

Tell Your Legislator: Pass Child Care Legislation This Legislative Session!

In early 2021, the Common Start Coalition drafted legislation, originally filed by Reps. Gordon & Madaro and Senators Lewis & Moran, that would establish a framework for delivering increased access to affordable, high-quality early education and child care to Massachusetts families, over the course of several years. On May 18, the Legislature’s Education Committee approved a landmark bill, H.4795/S.2883, titled An Act to Expand Access to High-Quality, Affordable Early Education and Care.

Major sections of the Education Committee’s legislation are heavily based on the Common Start bill. Now, we have until the end of the current legislative session on July 31 to pass H.4795/S.2883 and make progress this year on transforming the childcare system in Massachusetts!

Contact your legislators here!