GOV. CHARLIE BAKER is making another go at passing elements of his criminal dangerousness bill, this time with a bit of high-stakes legislative horse trading. Baker, in signing the fiscal 2023 budget on Thursday, refused to sign into law free phone calls for prison inmates and other prison reforms, instead returning those sections with an […]
prison phone calls
Posted inCriminal Justice
SJC says sheriffs can charge commissions for prison phone calls
MASSACHUSETTS SHERIFFS HAVE the legal authority to raise revenue from contracts for inmate phone calls, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled Tuesday. Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, whose office was at the center of the lawsuit, called the decision “a win for taxpayers.” “In a decision released today by the SJC, the court has supported my […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Will Mass. follow Connecticut in ending charges for prisoner phone calls?
IF PEER PRESSURE is a thing among state legislatures, Massachusetts may soon be feeling some heat from its next-door neighbor. Yesterday, Gov. Ned Lamont signed legislation making Connecticut the first state in the country to make phone calls free for incarcerated people and their loved ones. While internet technology has made it possible to chat […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Families want to end prison phone call charges
AYANA AUBOURG MET her father Winchel Aubourg as an infant while he was behind bars for a drug-related crime. For the next 17 years, she spoke with him over the phone, and occasionally visited while he was held in facilities in Massachusetts and New Jersey. “You have no idea what receiving those phone calls meant […]