Lawmakers are optimistic this year’s budget will include a deal to let incarcerated New Yorkers make phone calls free of charge. “Incarcerated individuals need to be able to contact their families,” said state Sen. Jamaal Bailey, a Bronx Democrat. “Isolation is a real thing regardless of who you are. Isolation affects us all and being able to contact family members and loved ones, whoever it is you’re calling, is important.” If approved, the measure would end a policy debate that has lingered in Albany for decades. One of the first actions taken by ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer in 2007 was to roll back a Pataki-era policy that had the state collect a surcharge on calls. That would drop the cost of a 20-minute call from a state facility from $6.20 to $3, Spitzer promised at the time. The costs have dropped further since then, to less than $1 for a comparable call. But after New York City went further in 2019 by letting residents of city jails use the phone for free, and the availability of tablets in prisons makes it more logistically feasible than ever, activists say there’s no reason the state can’t remove all the charges on calls. “Long term, it’s going to save us a lot of money,” Assemblymember Harvey Epstein said. “The data’s really clear about reducing recidivism by keeping people connected to their families.” Short term, the program is expected to cost $9.9 million a year. Both houses of the Legislature have included plans for the spending in their one-house budget proposals. “We’ve heard that [the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision] is very supportive of the idea,” Epstein said. A DOCCS spokesman declined to comment on pending legislation, but said the department “believes that a key component for the successful re-entry of an incarcerated individual is maintaining a social connection with friends and family” and has worked to provide more free calls in recent years. Legislators have worked with the executive branch to tweak their plan to ensure three-way support for the concept between Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Assembly and Senate. The only remaining issue might be whether negotiators can find $10 million in the budget for the financial component: “The money is always the money,” Epstein said. Bailey said he was similarly “hopeful and cautiously optimistic and all of those things.” But “as they always are in March, discussions are fluid and ongoing.” — Bill Mahoney
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