WEST BOYLSTON — Worcester County Sheriff Lewis G. Evangelidis Jr. is speaking out about what he perceives as a well-intentioned but ill-conceived policy requiring free phone calls for inmates.
And Evangelidis, a Republican and a former member of the Massachusetts House of Representaties, is hoping the Legislature revisits and remedies the situation.
On Dec. 1, the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction at 5 Paul X. Tivnan Drive implemented no-cost phone calls for inmates, resulting from legislation signed by Gov. Maura Healey requiring that free calls be made available for individuals in state and county prisons. There is no cap on the number of calls.
This legislation made Massachusetts the fifth state in the nation to provide free calls for inmates.
“Maintaining and fostering connections between incarcerated individuals and their loved ones advances rehabilitation by supporting successful reentry and reducing recidivism,” said a DOC spokesperson.“The Massachusetts Department of Correction’s implementation of the no-cost calls initiative has removed barriers for incarcerated individuals to stay connected to their outside support network and will promote community safety by improving outcomes for incarcerated individuals upon release.”
But Evangelidis says prisoners are spending a large amount of time on the phone and incessantly calling families to the point of harassment. He said the new program is costing the taxpayers a lot of money and it needs to be revisited.
“We all believe people have to stay in touch with the outside world when they’re incarcerated because you want to make sure they have a smooth reentry. We 100% support that,” he said. “We have direct contact visits authorized for certain programs. We have a parenting class that we allow children to visit with their parents, almost direct contact. We do the same thing with the music program graduation and the culinary program.”
However, the no-cost phone calls program is something totally different, Evangelidis said, because the taxpayers are paying a hefty sum for free phone calls for inmates who are abusing the program.
“You don’t get free phone calls in the real world,” Evangelidis said. “It just seems like this has gone too far.”
Before the new legislation went into effect, the Worcester County Jail would collect $240,000 annually from the inmates’ calls. That money would be used to pay for the jail’s culinary program, music program, recreational programs and religious services, as well as sporting goods, furniture and microwaves for inmates, Evangelidis said.
Previously, inmates would get an estimated 10 minutes a week of free calls and then have to pay 14 cents a minute after that.
Now, officials expect the jail will pay $1.5 million this year for free phone calls, Evangelidis said. He said the 14 sheriff's offices that make up the Massachusetts Sheriffs Association could pay up to $15 million annually.
“You’re seeing a major reversal and the amount of minutes the inmates are using right now is about a million minutes a month," he said.
The House budget for next fiscal year includes $35 million to fund free phone calls across the sheriff's offices and the DOC. The Senate budget, however, does not fund free calls.
“They’re not reimbursing us right now,” he said. “So we’re running a huge deficit to do this.”
Besides the added costs, Evangelidis said there are other "unintended consequences” with the new program.
He said the access to unlimited calls has meant that some inmates are less involved with therapeutic, substance abuse, vocational skills, recreational and educational programs offered by the jail, he said.
In addition, the added amount of calls that have to be monitored for public safety purposes is taking away staff hours that could be better used, he said.
And finally, Evangelidis said, the sheriff's office is repeatedly hearing from inmates’ families who say they are being harassed by incessant calls.
“We hear from the families (of inmates) who say, ‘We can’t tolerate this many calls.’ It’s becoming a nuisance. It’s impeding their abilities to live their lives,” Evangelidis said. “They (inmates) have substance use issues, mental health issues, and the families sometimes get a break from dealing with all that, every day, all day. But now, they’re getting inundated with phone calls all day. And they’re the ones telling us, ‘Can you stop this? Can you make it so they have less availability to phones?’”
The state DOC, however, said it has not received any formal complaints from families about the frequency or timing of calls from incarcerated individuals.A person may request removal from an incarcerated individual’s approved call list, and all calls made by incarcerated individuals require acceptance by the person answering before the call is connected.
According to data provided by the DOC, in November, the last month before the implementation of free phone calls, Securus phone revenue was $474,394.29, with Massachusetts inmates using 3,898,397 minutes in phone calls. With an average population count of 6,029, the average call minutes per incarcerated individual was 647.
In April, the fifth month into implementation of free phone calls, the cost including fees was $769,716.96, with Massachusetts inmates using 9,230,351 minutes in phone calls, with an average population count of 6,064, and average minutes per incarcerated individual of 1,522.
