Christina Lee, Head Photography Editor

In 2021, a historic criminal justice law made Connecticut the first state to provide free phone calls to incarcerated people. Four years later, Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget proposal — which includes axing funding for free texts and emails in prisons — is threatening to rewrite that law.

The 2021 law bars the state from receiving revenue from prison communications. In order for Lamont’s proposal to eliminate free electronic messages to go into effect, the law would have to be amended such that incarcerated people could pay for communication services.

“This is a stark contradiction and a slap in the face to that 2021 free phone call law we passed,” state Rep. Robyn Porter, one of the co-sponsors of the law, told the News. “Instead of eliminating [texts and emails], we should be focused on policies that support successful reintegration, which ultimately saves us money.” Encouraging people to stay out of prison, Porter argued, would lower the Department of Correction bill in the long run. 

David Bednarz, a spokesperson for Lamont, wrote to the News that the budget proposal aims to shift “the costs of messaging on the tablets … to incarcerated individuals,” although phone calls will remain free. Bednarz confirmed that Lamont hopes for the 2021 law to be amended to align with his budget proposal.

Porter, who has a son that was formerly incarcerated, condemned Lamont’s proposed budget cuts for prison electronic messaging. She emphasized that free texts and emails help people maintain family ties while incarcerated, a key factor in reducing recidivism.

“We wrote letters,” Porter said, recalling her son’s incarceration. “We sent cards when we didn’t have time to write letters. We went to visits. We made sure there was money on his books … We [wanted to] make sure he was doing the time and not letting the time do him.”

Porter noted that some incarcerated people feel more comfortable communicating with loved ones through texts and emails than through phone calls, which are recorded and monitored by correctional staff.

She also flagged the heightened operational costs that the state DOC might face, as the elimination of free texts and email will likely require correctional staff to process more letters and cards.

Miriam Gohara, a Yale Law School professor who represents incarcerated individuals in state and federal prisons, echoed Porter’s worries. 

A concerned family member of a client reached out to Gohara after hearing about Lamont’s proposal. The family member said that phone calls aren’t always reliable and that slashing free electronic messaging would limit incarcerated peoples’ ability to communicate with loved ones. A formerly incarcerated person previously told the News that prior to 2021, communication costs were steep, and he relied on his family members to foot the bill. 

Porter voiced skepticism that this portion of Lamont’s budget proposal will pass the state legislature. Others are more firm. Bianca Tylek, the executive director of Worth Rises, the nonprofit organization that helped pass the 2021 bill, is confident that the proposal will not move forward. 

“I think that we have it on pretty good word from senior members of the legislature and others who actively helped fight for this bill back in 2021 that [the proposal] will not move through,” Tylek said.

Tylek urged the state to reconsider its contract with the prison telecom vendor, Securus Technologies, instead of ending free messages in totality. The state negotiated a three-year contract, through August 2026, at a rate of $30 per incarcerated person each month for phone calls and $15 per person each month for emails. 

Worth Rises has helped other states implement free communication models, and they believe that Connecticut is being overcharged for electronic messaging services. 

Tylek said that Connecticut should restart the negotiation process in order to get better rates, citing the fact that the state renegotiated their existing contract with Securus without considering other vendors. 

She also mentioned that when phone communication was made free in 2021, Connecticut had one of the highest prison call rates in the nation. 

“When that was revealed to the commissioner at the time, back in 2019, 2020 he was shocked, and that, for me, really illustrated how inept the job was that was done around negotiation,” Tylek said. 

Lamont announced his $55.2 billion biennial budget proposal on Feb. 10.