As lawmakers mull whether to limit how often phone privileges can be revoked as punishment, advocates say the problem runs deeper. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Jenean Owens spent 17 years incarcerated at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, entering prison at age 21 and leaving a young son on the outside. To her, the lockup’s beaten-up telephones were a window to the rest of the world.
Owens recalled what it was like not just to fight with 30 to 45 other women over two working phones on the floor, but to have phone access revoked when officials sent her to restrictive housing. She said she once spent 30 days with no phone privileges.
“It was complete torture for me because I didn’t know what was going on with my family, and that hurt the most. My son was thinking that I just didn’t want to call him, but I just couldn’t call him,” she said in an interview with the New Jersey Monitor.
This feeling becomes especially acute around the holidays, Owens noted.
“You want to talk to your family, ask them, ‘What’s going on for Christmas? What’re you shopping for?’ Some regular things, keeps you grounded. … ‘What’re you eating for Thanksgiving?’ The least you can do is talk on the phone as much as you can, while you can,” she said.
As lawmakers mull whether to limit how often phone privileges can be revoked as punishment behind bars, attorneys and formerly incarcerated people say the problem runs deeper.
There aren’t enough phones for prisoners, which often leads to fights. Understaffed prisons can translate to no calls for days at a time. And some prisoners have reported they get so little time out of their cells daily, they sometimes have to choose between calling home and taking a shower.
Alicia Hubbard is an assistant deputy public defender with the state Office of the Public Defender. She said since the summer, some prisons have been on “the equivalent of lockdown” from Friday evening until Monday morning. Weekends are a time when families are free for calls, so allowing those on the inside to make calls only during weekdays means they have less of a chance of speaking to their loved ones, she said.
The Rev. Russell Owen spent 31 years incarcerated, and was transferred to several prisons during his sentence before being released in 2021. Prison can often be violent, he said, and fights are sure to break out when there aren’t enough phones.
“Sometimes people would get upset and tear the cord off the phone. It was always tension. You’re talking to your family, there’s noise, there’s people cussing, people yelling, ‘Man, get the F off the phone!’ and you’re trying to give your family some relief. But it’s always tension,” he said in an interview.
An April report from the state Corrections Ombudsperson’s Office said people incarcerated in New Jersey’s largest prisons don’t get fair access to telephones or enough time to make calls, and in some cases, people have lost their ability to make calls for years at a time. The report urges the state Department of Corrections to overhaul disciplinary policies to limit revoked phone privileges.
In response, corrections officials said that the loss of privileges “in an attempt to curb maladaptive behavior is necessary in order to maintain safety.”
In 2023, more than 10 million phone calls were placed in New Jersey prisons, on top of 8,235 video chats, 3 million emails sent and received, and 550,000 photos exchanged, according to the Department of Corrections. The department is currently working with a vendor to provide handheld tablets with phone call capabilities to all incarcerated people “in the near future,” said department spokesman Dan Sperrazza.
He conceded the department, like all law enforcement agencies nationwide, “faces the challenge of staffing shortages.”
“The NJDOC is dedicated to promoting and fostering family connections through numerous arrangements, including family programs, phone calls, emails, video visits, and in-person visits with family and friends,” he said.
Phone access in prisons isn’t like picking up your phone and dialing a number. Incarcerated people have a limit of about 10 approved numbers — cellphone numbers were just recently made eligible — of family, friends, and attorneys they can call. The number of phones depends on the prison and wing. Prisoners sign up for time slots, and the maximum allotted time is typically 15 minutes per call.
Bill Sullivan heads the New Jersey Policemen’s Benevolent Association Local #105, which represents 5,000 state correctional officers. He disputed the idea that staffing issues are leading to less phone time and suggested that people may be frustrated because they want popular time periods for making calls, like early morning or evening.
Adding more phones wouldn’t resolve the problem, he said, because that would mean more prisoners out of their cells, leading to security concerns and the need for more staff.
People are always offered the ability to make calls, he said, regardless of the housing unit they’re in.
“I guess they’re not getting the exact times, or they don’t get through, and that’s probably what frustrates them,” he said. “But everybody’s always afforded the opportunity to use the phone once a day.”
Owen said he committed no infractions in prison to justify having his phone access taken away. But he said his time to make calls was limited.
In New Jersey State Prison in Trenton, Owen recalled, there was a “runner” who carried one phone with a 300-foot cord to the cells of people signed up for calls. But it took so long for them to physically bring the phone, the calls were less than five minutes, he said.
At East Jersey State Prison in Rahway, Owen said on multiple occasions he had to choose between bathing or calling his mom, who was sick at the time.
“I’m sitting by my door waiting, by the bars looking for someone. You don’t see nobody. Nobody comes out. Nobody comes to let you out to use the phone,” he said. “Her life is hanging in the balance, I’m trying to figure out what’s going on. And you can’t.”
What the bill would reform
A bill proposed by lawmakers would limit how often correctional officers can discipline prisoners by suspending their phone privileges. It would bar jail officials from suspending phone access for more than 90 days consecutively, or 180 days in one year of incarceration. And if someone’s phone access is revoked, they would still be able to make one call every two weeks.
The legislation has general support among attorneys in the public defender’s office and the corrections ombudsperson. Jennifer Sellitti, the state public defender, said it would still impose long limitations, but the limits would be better than they are now.
Sellitti suggested different forms of discipline, like limiting phone calls to less than 15 minutes or restricting when someone could use the phone. But taking someone’s privileges away outright makes for a harder stay in prison and a tougher time re-entering into society, she said.
She added that the public and lawmakers especially need to realize that while someone may be guilty of committing a horrific crime, they can still be capable of redemption and rehabilitation. There needs to be space for people to return to the community with a support system and family, she said.
“We can both punish and rehabilitate at the same time,” Sellitti said.
Sullivan said taking away calls is one of the few forms of discipline in prison, though he doesn’t see it used as punishment often unless someone commits an infraction related to phones, like breaking it or being found with a cellphone.
His biggest issue with the bill is that it would legislate Department of Corrections policy, he said. He’d rather see the legislation carve out exceptions for when phone use can be used as discipline.
Sellitti stressed the importance of people speaking with family, even if it’s once every 14 days. Losing access to the outside has a massive impact on people’s psychology, she noted.
“We still have that reflexive stigma that people who commit crimes are bad and don’t deserve anything. My response to the people who say that to me is always, ‘But they’re coming home to a community near you,” she said.
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