Bill > H1614

This bill, concerning telephone service for inmates in correctional facilities in Massachusetts, amends existing law to ensure that prisoners pay the same rates for local and long-distance calls as regular residential customers. It mandates that the Department of Correction and county houses of correction must negotiate contracts for telephone services that offer the lowest possible cost to the inmates using them. Furthermore, the bill explicitly prohibits the Commonwealth, the Department of Correction, and county houses of correction from accepting any commissions, revenues, or discounted telephone services for their employees from the companies that provide these inmate phone services, aiming to prevent any financial benefit to the institutions themselves from inmate phone usage.