Free prison call program rewarded good behavior, cost taxpayers zero. DeSantis killed it

Sandra Ritter hasn’t seen her only son in eight years. He’s incarcerated at Apalachee Correctional Institution in North Florida, locked up for possession of cocaine.

Ritter lives six hours away in Largo and has a disability that prevents her from driving to see him in person. But she talks to William once a week by phone, considering herself fortunate that she can afford the fees the state prison system charges to talk. That connection to life outside, she said, is what helps him endure.

“When you take that away from them,’’ she said, “they have no hope.”

Florida’s rate for prison calls may not sound like much — 13.5 cents a minute — but the cost can be a strain for families and loved ones struggling to make ends meet while trying to maintain relationships fractured by prison sentences. So last year, the Florida Department of Corrections agreed to a pilot program designed to encourage good behavior with the reward of free monthly 15-minute calls.

It costs taxpayers nothing — all $1 million for the program came from commissary, phone and other fees mostly paid by incarcerated people — and the Legislature sought to double funding this year.

Gov. Ron DeSantis killed it without explanation.

And now, Florida has taken another step to keep prison calls cost high, joining 13 other Republican attorney generals in a lawsuit fighting to block the Federal Communications Commission’s new rule that would lower those fees nationwide starting next year.

Prison reform advocates argue the moves are short-sighted. The free call program and cheaper phone fees improve safety for prison staff, they say, and maintaining outside connections can be a key to decreasing the likelihood that incarcerated people will return to crime. And the real burden is on families and loved ones who aren’t serving time. Many Florida prisons are located in rural, isolated areas and phone calls serve as a literal lifeline for them.

“We’re trying to keep families together, keep marriages going, maintain kids’ relationships with their parents,” said Karen Stuckey, a public safety advocate who works with Florida Advocates. “You can’t do that if you only talk 10 minutes a week.”

Program has bipartisan support

The free call program was spearheaded by a couple of University of Florida students — Graham Bernstein, a senior at the University of Florida and director of political affairs for the Florida Student Policy Forum, and his colleague Konstantin Nakov — after reading an article about a family who had to choose between buying medication and calling their incarcerated loved ones.

They started small with a program in a Gainesville jail but then began working with prison reform advocates and state lawmakers, finding support among Florida’s Republican super majority legislature by sharing research demonstrating that keeping incarcerated individuals connected with their support system reduces the likelihood of recidivism.

“This isn’t just some kind of fringe, left-wing approach to criminal justice policy,” Bernstein said in an interview with the Herald. “It is based in not only trying to save families of the incarcerated money, it’s based in improving public safety and in saving taxpayer dollars.”

The money to support it was drawn from what’s known as the Inmate Welfare Trust Fund , which includes revenue from inmate canteens, vending machines used mostly by the incarcerated and their visitors, other internal sources and telephone commission fees. That last one generates significant dollars. The state prison system receives $5 million a year in telephone commissions from its contract with Viapath Technology, formerly known as Global Tel*Link Corporation.

The Department of Corrections kicked off the pilot program last October, allocating $1 million from the trust fund to offer free calls for inmates with clean disciplinary records or who do extra work around the facility. It’s set up so that the prison population largely pays for the pilot program itself, said Bernstein.

“No Florida taxpayer whatsoever paid a single cent for this,” he said.

$6,300 in prison phone charges

Stuckey, who works with Florida Advocates —a group dedicated to improving the lives of incarcerated individuals —worked with Bernstein and Nakov and wrote countless letters to Florida lawmakers, explaining the importance of sustained family ties and support for successful reentry into society.

The issue is deeply personal for Stuckey, who at one point had both her son and husband incarcerated in Florida prisons. She said she spent $6,300 in just 23 months, making one or two phone calls a day.

In an interview with the Herald, Stuckey stressed how difficult and expensive it is to help people released from prison transition back into the work-a-day world. When her son was released last year after being incarcerated for 20 years, she faced housing, transportation, and health bills. Most notably, he needed $15,000 in dental work.

“You can’t walk around with no teeth and expect to get a job,” she said.

Lawmakers were ready to renew the program earlier this year. The Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Committee sought to expand the phone call pilot program’s budget to $2 million . The Legislature signed off on it.

But the governor pulled the plug. DeSantis has not publicly commented on why he ended the call program and his office did not respond to a request for comment from the Miami Herald. But he did provide a veto letter explaining his reasoning for cutting other additional criminal justice reform measures that also had bipartisan support and similarly focused on improving the success of reentry programs. One bill would have allowed the incarcerated to keep their status as in-state residents for tuition purposes .

“We should not reward criminal activity by providing inmates with the same benefits as law-abiding citizens,” the letter read.

Phone calls reduce recidivism

Like many states, Florida’s prison system struggles with a high rate of return.

The Florida Department of Corrections provides a quarterly report that tracks rates of recidivism, which the study defines as the re-arrest, reconviction, reincarceration, or probation revocation in the state within a three-year time period following release from incarceration. According to its June 2024 report, of the incarcerated people released between April 1, 2021 and June 30, 2021, 57% were arrested, 37% were convicted, 28% were incarcerated, and 16% had their probation revoked.

Prison reform advocates say seemingly small things like free calls can help improve those figures.

Don Stanton, a retired sergeant with the Florida Department of Corrections, told the Herald that Florida lawmakers slashing initiatives that cost incarcerated people access to family and friends undermines hopes of rehabilitation.

Stanton, who worked inside the Lowell Correctional Institution, located in Ocala, for 17 years, now volunteers with Florida Advocates and Exodus Prison Ministry, visiting several prisons almost weekly. He said he sees the effect that losing contact with loved ones has on the incarcerated.

“It negatively impacts them because they feel dehumanized,” he said. “Every time you take something from them, it’s more reason for them to say, ‘Why bother changing if this is how people feel about us?’”

The federal government is also taking steps to make connections easier and less expensive - cutting the maximum phone fees by more than half.

In accordance with the 2022 Martha Wright-Reed Fair and Just Communications Act , the Federal Communications Commission voted to implement price caps on prison and jail phone call rates that will significantly lower the existing caps set in 2021 . Effective on Jan. 1, 2025, the price cap for phone calls for prisons will be six cents per minute, dropping from the current price cap of 14 cents per minute.

The U.S. Department of Justice endorsed the move. “Regular and reliable communication keeps families connected and reduces recidivism after release,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division in an April 2024 press release urging the Federal Communications Commission to lower jail and prison phone call prices.

But last week, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody joined 13 other Republican attorney generals in a lawsuit to block the FCC’s new rule from taking effect.

The Sept. 30 filing argues that the FCC’s rule is “arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act, is in excess of statutory authority, is not supported by substantial evidence, and is otherwise contrary to law.”

Forgoing phone calls for food

Ritter, 67, whose 44-year-old son is scheduled to remain in Apalachee Correctional until 2035, said the public doesn’t understand the difficulties that families like hers face. She sometimes forgoes more phone calls with her son so she can give him money to buy extra food.

Ritter said the free call program gave her son something good to work toward. He painted signs for a living before his drug addiction landed him in prison and painting entryways in the facility earned his monthly free phone call.

And her experience underlines the importance of connections. Because she can afford regular calls, she’s become the hub of a network of people who can’t — regularly passing messages between her son’s incarcerated friends and their loved ones who couldn’t spare the extra cash for the phone calls.

“My son will give me the phone number of the parents and the message, which is usually to let them know that their son is OK, or that he’s sick, or that he needs prayer, or whatever.”

One message that she was also happy to pass on was a reminder to expect that upcoming free monthly call. “I’m telling the parents, your son will call you tomorrow and they’re like, ‘Oh, thank God,’’’ she told the Herald. “And then they stopped it. Oh, gosh. I just felt so bad.”

This story was produced with financial support from the Esserman Family Foundation in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.