Massachusetts becomes fifth state to make prison calls free

(www.wgbh.org)

264 points toomuchtodo | 1 comments | 29 Nov 23 02:33 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

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glenjamin ◴[29 Nov 23 12:39 UTC] No.38458643[source]▶

I once attended an internal presentation while working for the UK's Ministry of Justice.

A large number of contraband mobile phones had been confiscated, and a team performed some data analysis to see what they'd been used for.

The overwhelming conclusion was that the phones had been primarily used to keen in touch with family.

There's also a whole bunch of research that showed that maintaining ties with the outside world while incarcerated led to reduced rates of reoffending (and the inverse was also true - isolation led to increased rates).

Allowing free phone calls in and out of prisons makes a lot of sense both socially and economically.

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farhanhubble ◴[29 Nov 23 15:39 UTC] No.38460765[source]▶

>>38458643 #

While it may improve the outcome for prisoners wouldn't it be abused by criminals at a large scale? In my country at least phones are smuggled by criminals to continue running their enterprises from behind the bars.

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1. voidwtf ◴[29 Nov 23 16:31 UTC] No.38461531[source]▶

>>38460765 #

This is the same type of logic used by police to justify civil forfeiture of cash in the USA. Drug dealers carry a lot of cash because they can't use banks, so anybody carrying a lot of cash must be a drug dealer and the cash must be illegal proceeds from drug dealing.

Not only has this logic severely damaged public trust in police, but it's been incrementally extended to seize money and property from many innocent and/or uninvolved people.

I'm not saying it will never happen, but we should not be punishing everyone for the misdeeds of the few. We should not be attributing anything to criminal activity that has not yet been proven to be criminal activity.

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