REVISISED: CT is now the first and only State to have completely free inmate calling. It was said that high level prison officials took home an undisclosed percentage some of the profits, and that ended.

You may already know that in the US a large percentage of the total profits. Roughly 80% of total inmates, are funneled through public and private prisons on a for-profit basis. Across the nation, judges and prosecutors are said to be heavily invested in CCA, Corrections Corporation of America, a private for-profit. The statistics that underlie America's over-incarceration epidemic are mind blowing. While it has only 5% of the world's people, it has a whopping 25% of its inmates. Prison profiteering doesn't end there however. In Connecticut, tens of thousands of taxpayers are made to fork over $5 for fifteen minute phone calls with incarcerated loved ones.

By creating, prosecuting and then imprisoning people for trivial acts, prosecutors across the state actively split families apart and then price gouge the cost of re-connecting using a single third party contractor, Securus Technologies Corp. Typically low income and minority families of inmates are forced to pay up to $300 each month to avoid being split apart. According to media reports these phone bills will stop on October 2, 2022 when CT becomes the first state to make prison phone calls free. It would be the first time a state has done so and the move would suggest a justice system's shift in emphasis from profit taking to supporting community. Will it happen in reality? I asked Connecticut inmates and family members for their thoughts.

UPDATE 03/28/2023

Earlier this year, the efforts of protestestors paid off when CT in fact became the first state in the union to offer entirely free inmate phone calls. Standing out on the street speaking through an bull horn style amplifier, I'd never felt more obligated to face off with an institution like York. For months drivers passed the signage two sometimes three times per day, advocating with simple words and of course with a delightful 24' x 2' banner,"STOP GAMING COMMUNITY," to try to curb DOC officials' brazen price gouging of inmate phone services. In fact it worked.