Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery) testifies Thursday on his bill that would stop the practice of charging people in prison for phone calls. Sen. William G. Folden (R-Frederici), left, listens. Photo by William J. Ford.
Three cents a minute may not sound like much, but it adds up to millions of dollars every year for those incarcerated in Maryland prisons, and Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery) doesn’t think that’s right.
Waldstreicher is the sponsor of a bill that would force the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to pick up the cost of phone calls for people in state prisons, who are now charged for their calls.
The bill got a hearing Thursday on the second day of the legislative session, when committees rarely hold bill hearings.
“When someone goes to one of our state prisons, we don’t charge them rent. We don’t charge them for the food they eat. We don’t charge for the linens that they sleep on. We don’t charge them for the water they use in the bathroom or the shower,” said Waldstreicher in testimony to the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee where he serves as vice chair.
“So, it’s never made any sense to me that we charge them for the phone calls that they make,” he said. “Connections with the outside world help rehabilitate those in our state prisons.”
Under the current system, inmates pay 3 cents a minute for phone calls — still just a fraction of the 19 cents a minute the Federal Communications Commission allows for prison calls — to a private telephone service provider. Any profit from the calls is deposited into a prison’s incarcerated individual welfare fund, that is used to buy goods or services “that benefit the general incarcerated individual population, including education and vocational training and support of the grievance process,” according to a fiscal note attached to Waldstreicher’s bill.
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Senate Bill 56 would shift the cost from incarcerated individuals, and their families, and require the state to pay for the service. As of October 2023, there were more than 16,000 people in the state’s prison system.
But the fiscal note said that if the bill passes, it would cost the state at least $8 million a year after the change takes effect in fiscal 2027. That raised eyebrows on the committee, coming in a year when the state is looking at a potentially huge budget deficit.
“How is transitioning that to the taxpayer a benefit at all when we’re facing a $3 billion deficit this year and it’s only scheduled to increase from here?” asked Sen. William G. Folden (R-Frederick).
Antonya Jeffrey, who testified in support of the bill, said there is a larger benefit from not charging inmates.
“Shifting the burden to the state is actually more reliable than families who are already marginalized,” said Jeffrey, the director of policy campaigns and government affairs for Worth Rises of New York, a criminal justice advocacy organization.
“I understand that,” Folden said, “but that same mentality is what’s gotten us in part of this predicament.”
Jeffrey said she had not read the fiscal note, but claimed Maryland could spend less than $8 million by negotiating a new contract with its current telephone provider, GTL, to lower the cost for calls to about 1 cent per minute. Her organization estimates Maryland could end up paying about $2.7 million.
Jeffrey pointed to five states – California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Minnesota – that have passed similar legislation. The 2023 Colorado legislation phased in implementation of the law, with the state covering 25% of costs through June 30, 2024, then 35% of the cost from July 1, 2024, to June 30 of this year. Beginning on July 1 of this year, the department will have to cover 100% of costs.
“The state does what it’s in its best interest in all other areas, except for when it comes to caring about low-income residents, marginalized populations,” Jeffrey said in an interview after Thursday’s hearing. “Why not fight for the families who are paying the taxes?”
Waldstreicher’s bill would also create a Costs of Telephone Communications Advisory Committee. Some of the work would include to analyzing prison telephone programs in other states, assessing the department’s data on use of telephone equipment and telephone services and making recommendations “to lower the project cost of providing no-charge prison phone calls in the State.”
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The committee would submit its report with its findings to the governor and General Assembly by Dec. 31. No-charge calls for people incarcerated in Maryland prisons would not start until July 1, 2027.
This is at least the third attempt to pass the bill, which was sponsored in the past by former Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore City). No one testified against the bill at Thursday’s hearing.
“Almost everybody’s coming out of prison, and when they come out, they’re either going to be productive members of society, taxpayers, have a job,” said Mark Woodard, policy advocate with Job Opportunities Task Force in Baltimore, who testified in support of the measure.
“This facilitates them being successful when they come out. The whole point of this is to say, you spend pennies to save dollars,” Woodard said after the hearing