Jesse Scheckner
A plan to revive a free prison phone call program that Gov. Ron DeSantis killed last year is at risk of dying as House and Senate lawmakers don’t yet agree on whether to fund it.
The $1 million contemplated for the program, which the Senate wants to approve and the House doesn’t, wouldn’t come from the state’s tax coffers. Rather, it would come out of the Inmate Welfare Trust Fund, a pool of funds generated from in-prison vending machines, inmate canteens, telephone commission fees and other non-tax sources.
Lawmakers and the Governor approved the free phone call program in 2023 with a $1 million earmark from the trust fund. It was a modest program, offering prisoners who hadn’t received a disciplinary report for three months one free, 15-minute call per month.
Studies have shown that incarcerated people with strong family bonds — which can be maintained by regular visits and calls to the outside world — reduces recidivism.
Last year, citing its benefits, lawmakers decided to double the program’s funding. Then came the Governor’s veto pen, which he also applied to other passed measures that would have allowed inmates to keep their in-state resident status for tuition purposes and ensured parolees weren’t automatically reincarcerated for nonviolent parole violations.
“We should not reward criminal activity by providing inmates with the same benefits as law-abiding citizens,” he wrote.
Phone calls from Florida prisons are made collect, with the recipients covering the 13.5-cents-per-minute cost. The state’s communications provider offers inmates two free five-minute calls monthly.
That arrangement may seem reasonable, but it’s been exorbitant for some, including activist Karen Stuckey, who told the Miami Herald last year that she racked up $6,300 in phone bills over 23 months calling her incarcerated family members twice daily.
There’s still time for the Legislature to concur on whether to fund the program. But even if they do, the Governor could again cancel it.
2 comments
KathrynA
June 4, 2025 at 1:22 pm
Please do it as this is minimal which includes the nearly 100,000 inmates and gives an incentive for good behavior. Many of their families do not have mon y to take collect calls; especially, wives with children they’re trying to provide for.
Larry Gillis, Director-at-Large, Libertarian Party of Florida
June 4, 2025 at 2:54 pm
CHEAP THERAPY.
Taxpayer money spent on allowing prisoners to communicate freely with members of their immediate family and with a limited number of close friends is cheap at the price. I mean, you’ve taken Bonzo here out of circulation by locking him up, but you don’t need to crush him by depriving him of contact with the human beings who are important to him.
So, lighten up, Billy Bob. (Who knows? Maybe someday it will be YOUR turn in the barrel).