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Massachusetts becomes fifth state to make prison calls free

(www.wgbh.org)
264 points toomuchtodo | 3 comments | 29 Nov 23 02:33 UTC | HN request time: 0.578s | source
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qingcharles ◴[29 Nov 23 07:53 UTC] No.38456705[source]▶
When I first went to jail (for being poor) it was costing me $1.50/min to call my family.

Six years later, when I was still locked up, my mother was dying of cancer and I could only afford to call her for five minutes a day.

Illinois at least dropped the prices of its prison calls to 1¢/min.

Amazing that this bill includes the county jails. Often jail and prison regulations are totally separate and jails usually get the short end of the stick.

And remember, it is never the prisoners that pay for the calls. It is always the friends and family having to put money onto the phone or commissary accounts. Often a male prisoner has left behind a woman and children and they have lost their primary income, but now they are being burdened with paying for phone calls, hygiene products, clothing and food for their loved one too.

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1. q1w2 ◴[29 Nov 23 21:23 UTC] No.38465515[source]▶
I'd love to hear the details of your situation.

When a judge sets bail bond (which is what you're referring to in your prior comments - yes I read back because I was curious), it is either to ensure the accused returns for trial, or they set it very high to keep them in jail because they are a significant flight-risk.

I suspect you being a UK citizen was a big factor there - but I'm very surprised that your case is taking TEN YEARS and that you've been in jail the majority of that time. How does that happen? Are you appealing a prior case outcome?

You also got 1.5 additional years for violating a court gag order on your own case? Is that right?

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2. qingcharles ◴[02 Dec 23 07:13 UTC] No.38496628[source]▶
10 years. And the prosecutor called me to court and dropped all the charges a week or so ago.

The bail amount was set simply because I was a UK citizen, despite handing the court my passport, despite owning a house, despite being married to a US citizen.

Illinois just became the first state to abolish cash bail, so this problem will be less frequent now as the bar is higher.

Courts have been routinely ruling lately that cash bail was always constitutionally invalid, which makes sense, because it distinguishes rich from poor.

3. qingcharles ◴[02 Dec 23 07:21 UTC] No.38496668[source]▶
It was only five months for posting on Twitter. I can probably link to the main Tweet at this point:

https://twitter.com/CookCoDefender/status/153495695650234778...

https://nitter.net/CookCoDefender/status/1534956956502347784

I reposted the above Tweet and the judge freaked out about it. The newspaper article is about the fact I was getting arrested every day when I was on house arrest for a short time in 2021/2022 due to the monitoring system being a piece of crap. The judge said I shouldn't be posted under a fake name. My name is Charles and the link is to a newspaper article written about me under my real name.

The other one that was at issue looked almost exactly like this, but wasn't this exact one:

https://twitter.com/OneKingCharles/status/152697261340637593...

https://nitter.net/OneKingCharles/status/1526972613406375936

The judge said I should not be Tweeting about police misconduct.