New, Reduced Phone Rates for Michigan Prisoners

 The 2022-2023 Michigan budget Governor Whitmer recently signed into law has affected the cost of phone calls for Michigan prisoners. The new budget eliminates the "special equipment fund" that the DOC has used to purchase cameras, tasers, bulletproof vests (why?), and other "special equipment." Despite a Michigan law prohibiting the MDOC from receiving "kickbacks" from phone calls and other costs imposed on prisoners, they have been doing just that for years. Of course, they called it a "special equipment fund" instead of a kickback, but that's just semantics. 

As a result of this fund, the contract price for phone calls (four-and-a-half cents per minute 10 years ago), has been over twenty cents per minute for years. The extra cost has been used to fund prison "security" items like those listed above. 

Now that the new budget eliminates this fund, the cost of phone calls for prisoners has been cut in half. I don't know why the cost isn't less than five cents per minute, but even nine cents per minute is half the cost it used to be. That's something to be grateful for!

Research has shown that when prisoners maintain contact with their families and communities, they are much less likely to re-offend upon release from prison. Lower phone costs make maintaining contact with loved ones easier. Just as the cost of groceries has been drastically rising outside of prison, commissary costs in prison have also been rising, up by 50% in many cases. These lower phone costs are extremely timely for many prisoners. 

Incarceration is expensive, for states, for prisoners, and for prisoners' families. But unnecessarily burdening families and making it difficult for prisoners to maintain family and community ties doesn't serve the aim of public safety. If the goal of incarceration is safer communities, then policies that promote lowering recidivism, like cost-effective family contact, ought to be a priority. I'm grateful that in this case, at least, we're headed in the right direction. 

Now, if legislators could just stop hurdling sound bites that make it seem like they care about prison reform and reducing crime (but really don't), our state might actually begin to create safer communities. Data informed action, not sound bites, are what lead to effective reforms.