Connecticut is the state with the most expensive prison phones in the country. The state charges $4.87 per 15-minute call, 32 times more than the lowest-rate state, Illinois, which charges 14 cents per 15 minutes. Connecticut charges more than any other state in the US for phone calls to prisons with the exception of Arkansas.
A new state bill in the state legislature will make Connecticut the first state to free all prison phone calls. The bill would require all Connecticut prisons to provide free phones and other means of communication to inmates for at least 90 minutes a day. Prisoners in Connecticut will not have to pay for phone calls under the proposed law.
The bill, which would make Connecticut the first state in the nation to offer free prison phone calls, now goes to the governor’s desk. Advocates say the cost of staying connected to inmates and their families is too high and the benefits of close ties last longer than prison sentences.
NED LAMONT has signed a bill allowing prisoners to make free phone calls. Lamont’s law, which goes into effect this week, allows incarcerated men, women and youths to make free phone calls for at least 90 minutes a day.
It joins several jurisdictions already taking steps to make free of charge prison and jail phone calls to prison, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and New York City.
The first post Connecticut becomes the first state to make ice-cold calls free appeared on The Huffington Post. This week,- Connecticut became the first state to free all prison phones. These were dealing with one of the biggest emotional and financial burdens for incarcerated men and women and their families as they try to stay in touch. Hartford, Connecticut – Connecticut became today the first state to make prison phone calls free for everyone present despite the deep psychological and economic concerns facing the men and women behind bars when they and their family members tried to keep in touch.
Today, the Governor of Connecticut signed the Senate Bill 972, making Connecticut the first US state to free all prison phone calls for prisoners and their families. The bill passed the Senate and House of Representatives in bipartisan votes over the past two weeks to fund the budget. Connecticut joins a growing list of jurisdictions in the country which offer free prison services and phone services like New York City, San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles.
The state with the highest jail phone rates in the country currently charges $5 for a 15-minute call. The highest telephone rate in the U.S. The law was passed by Governor.
As a result, family members of those living in the state still pay exorbitant charges for calls within the state. Families in Connecticut pay $5 to $15 a minute for calls to prepaid accounts, the highest rate in the country, NPR reported. And 68% of commissions paid by the state for calls within the state – more than 7 million in 2009 – were paid through the state’s contract with Securus Technologies, one of the country’s largest prison phone providers.
In recent decades, the prison phone business has become a financial giant – an estimated $12 billion industry dominated by two companies, Global Tel-Link and Securus Technology, that pay states and municipalities to conduct business. Under a contract with the state Department of Administrative Services, providers of prison telephones like Securus make about $13 million in telephone calls each year, while prisons keep about $6 million. In 2018, for example, Connecticut prison inmates paid $13.2 million for phone calls – about 60% of what Securus paid to the state.
For years, private phone companies have been charging exorbitant fees for families of incarcerated people to talk to their loved ones in prison. This has discouraged states from bringing lower cell phone rates to prisons because they have to share the revenue from phone calls and rely on that revenue to work. And because they charge exorbitant fees for this service, telephone companies face no meaningful competition.
Ned Lamont wrote Wednesday that Connecticut is on track to become the first state in the nation to offer free telephone calls to incarcerated people and their families. SB 972 will save Connecticut families more than $1.2 million in fees and taxes, reconnect troubled families, improve re-entry outcomes, and improve access to support networks. Worth Rose joins with the rest of the Connecting Families Connecticut Coalition to celebrate this historic victory for prison justice, the result of years of organizing organized by Worth Rose and local advocates, including many of the most affected people.
The passage concludes a three-year battle by advocates, including Republican Josh Elliott, D-Hamden, who pointed out that families of detained loved ones paid $68 to the state commission for each of the calls, totaling $12.8 million. New York City passed a similar proposal last year, which also went into effect.
Farhadian, Weinstein and Bragg supported the dissolution of the NYPD deputy command and promised not to seek life imprisonment without parole, but declined to join the New York State Association of DAs, which campaigns for criminal justice reform.
Farhadian and Weinstein have been criticized for a series of attacks in which Bragg and Quarts resisted a state law requiring an investigation into domestic violence cases after both parties dismissed their complaints. The pair insist they were arguing for the need for an inquiry into the safety of an abused partner and that the couple should have dismissed their complaint. Bragg and his allies argue that the attacks play into racial tropes in which black men attack women, and they unfairly target neighborhoods.
The think tank Data for Progress conducted a poll in June that put Bragg and Farhadian-Weinstein, who worked for Attorney General Merrick Garland when he was sitting on the federal bench, at 26%, with none of the other candidates reaching double digits.
