By Christian M. Wade
Gloucester Daily Times, Mass.
BOSTON — The cost of providing unlimited free phone calls to inmates at state prisons and correctional facilities is rising, and county sheriffs are seeking more money and reforms from Beacon Hill to help offset the impact on their budgets.
In her preliminary fiscal year 2026 budget, which is being considered by lawmakers, Gov. Maura Healey requested $15 million for the state Department of Correction and county sheriffs to provide phone calls to prisoners at no cost.
That’s less than half what she asked for in the previous year’s budget, which ultimately was reduced to $10 million in the final spending package.
County sheriffs say that the money won’t be enough to cover the costs of providing free calls, with about 12,000 prisoners in the system statewide. Some have raised concerns about public safety and access to a limited number of phones.
10,000 calls a day
Essex County Sheriff Kevin Coppinger, who oversees the Middleton Jail, said his office has already spent more than $1.6 million on free phone calls in the fiscal year that began last July.
He said the costs come on top of a $1.2 million loss of revenue from state reforms that limited how much correctional facilities can charge for commissary items such as food, clothing and hygienic products.
“I agree with the other sheriffs that it helps with maintaining family connections and reentry into the community, but we need to set some limits,” Coppinger said. “We have some guys talking on the phone 16 hours a day.”
Coppinger said inmates can make free phone calls from 7:20 a.m. to 10:15 p.m., seven days a week. On any given day, inmates at the Middleton Jail and facilities in Lawrence and Salisbury make an average of 10,000 calls, about half of which are connected. Some of them are placed to overseas numbers.
“We have calls going out to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic,” Coppinger said. “All of this is on the taxpayers’ dime.”
With the increased call volume comes heightened security concerns, Coppinger said, with correctional officers spending more time screening inmates who may be attempting to contact victims or criminal associates on the outside. That has also increased sheriff’s operating costs, he said.
Two weeks ago, sheriffs urged members of the House Ways and Means Committee, a panel of lawmakers who are crafting the House version of the $62 billion state budget, to provide more funding and set limits on the free phone calls.
“I understand the need for families to be in touch with their loved ones. I get that,” Suffolk County Sheriff Steven Tompkins told the panel in testimony. “I don’t get free phone calls. I just don’t, and I don’t think that they should either.”
From paid to free
Massachusetts is one of five states to offer free prison calls after Gov. Maura Healey and lawmakers approved the program with no cap on the number of minutes or calls, videos or emails.
Healey had proposed a limit of up to 1,000 minutes a month, but lawmakers opted to make the calls “unlimited.” The only funding attached to the plan was $20 million allocated in a previous budget. Healey and lawmakers have wrangled over the phone-call funding in the past two budget cycles.
Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Prisoner Legal Services of Massachusetts say phone calls and other forms of communication are a lifeline for those who are incarcerated by helping to maintain connections with family members, friends and loved ones.
A group of former inmates filed a lawsuit several years ago over fees charged to inmates for phone calls that plaintiffs called an “illegal kickback scheme,” driving up costs for inmates and their families, and restricting their ability to communicate with lawyers and loved ones.
Plaintiffs argued that a 2009 law bringing county sheriffs under the state’s regulatory umbrella does not allow them to charge exorbitant fees or collect commissions from prisoners’ phone calls. But the state’s Supreme Judicial Court issued a ruling in 2022 that allows county sheriffs to continue charging inmates.
Most of the state’s prisons and correctional facilities contract with a private vendor to facilitate the calls. While the state Department of Correction has charged 12 to 14 cents per minute for calls, some sheriffs have charged up to 40 cents per minute, advocates say.
In 2021, sheriffs announced an agreement to provide inmates with 10 minutes of free phone calls per week and to charge no more than 14 cents per minute afterward.
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