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New San Diego County policy makes jail phone calls free, but shorter

San Diego County supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer speaking at a press conference April 27 in San Diego
San Diego County supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer at a press conference in front of the Otay Mesa Detention Center April 27. She said recently that the county should not be generating revenue by charging inmates and their families to communicate.
(Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
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The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to enact a policy that would prohibit county-run jails and juvenile detention facilities from charging for phone calls.

Starting July 1, all phone calls and video visits will be free for anyone incarcerated in a county facility.

Currently calls from jails and juvenile detention centers cost 21 cents per minute for prepaid inter-state calls and 33 cents per minute for local and in-state calls. The out-of-state calls cost less due to a rate cap imposed in 2017 by the Federal Communications Commission.

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Listening to a voicemail message from a detainee costs $2, and a 20-minute video visit costs $2.50, down from a pre-pandemic rate of $5.

In addition to high per-minute costs, fees are tacked on for services like adding money to an inmate’s phone account.

The rates and fees were established by the Sheriff’s Department’s contract with Securus Technologies, one of the largest providers of jail phone services in the U.S.

Tuesday’s vote formalizes a proposal introduced in March by Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer. Lawson-Remer told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the county should not be generating revenue by charging inmates and their families to communicate.

“The idea that we should be creating a situation to profit off the families of incarcerated individuals who are already struggling day to day to put food on the table, to me it’s morally wrong. It’s not how we should be paying for things,” she said.

Research shows that incarcerated people who maintain connections to friends and family do better when they’re released. Studies also have found that high phone costs disproportionately impact low-income families and penalize people who have not been convicted of a crime.

Supervisors initially approved the new policy in March but were waiting for county staff to identify funding to make up for revenue the calls generate. The probation department receives roughly $140,000 a year under the Securus contract and the Sheriff’s Department receives nearly $2.8 million a year. The money goes to inmate programs and services.

The new policy will allocate $7.7 million for fiscal years 2021-23 to cover the lost revenue.

Sheriff’s Department Capt. Alan Kneeshaw told the board that once the no-cost model goes into effect on July 1, inmates will be limited to one 15-minute call every three hours “to allow for user rotation.” Currently calls cut off after 30 minutes, but there is no limit to the number of calls an inmate can make.

Bianca Tylek, executive director of the criminal justice reform organization Worth Rises, said she was pleased that supervisors moved ahead with plans to make jail communication free, but the Sheriff’s Department’s proposal to limit calls “undermines the intention of the new policy,” she said.

“We hope the county revisits these restrictions and honors the intention of the policy to increase communication,” Tylek said.

The new policy comes amid efforts by federal and state regulators to further rein in the cost of jail and prison phone calls. Last week, the FCC proposed reducing the cap on interstate calls to 12 cents a minute for prisons and 14 cents a minute for jails holding more than 1,000 people.

Also last week the California Public Utilities Commission held virtual hearings to gather testimony from people impacted by the cost of jail and prison phone calls.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Supervisor Nora Vargas asked the county’s chief administrative officer to support these efforts to curb costs amid pushback from for-profit communications providers.

“For far too long, a small number of companies have created a monopoly and forced families to pay unreasonable rates to speak with their loved ones,” Vargas said.

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