Massachusetts becomes fifth state to make prison calls free

> The Department of Correction :currently charges 12 cents per minute, and most county sheriffs charge 14 cents per minute — forcing cash-strapped prisoners, or their families, to spend $2.40 and $2.80 for a 20-minute call in addition to extra fees for putting money into an account

> Counties will be refunded for their calls’ costs through a fund facilitated by the Executive Office of Administration and Finance, according to Tenneriello. Telecommunication contracts with companies like Securus will continue until they expire, and will be renegotiated.

This isn't quite clear; will the state be reimbursing county prisons at the rate of $0.14/min? Because if so this is outrageous, calls do not cost that much to make, and now there's a perverse incentive for municipal entities to encourage calls in order to siphon funds from the state.

The devil really is in the details here.

The question is why don't they provider the services at cost? It's not like they invest in the phones. They are in the end public phones no? And secured a little bit so they can't be damaged easily, but that's it.

> Because if so this is outrageous, calls do not cost that much to make

About 15 years ago, phone companies (both mobile and landline) essentially switched to being internet providers with phone service on the side, and when that happened, you stopped being charged for individual calls (within the US at least). Before the trend to unlimited phone calls, the typical rate for a phone call was roughly in a $0.10/min region.

In that light, it's less that prisons charge outrageous amounts of money for a phone call and more that they're only people who are providing phone service that's not a side project of internet service.