Lowering prison fees can reduce recidivism in Virginia

It sounds almost too good to be true: a new policy that keeps more people out of trouble once they’re released from prison. A silver bullet that’s already proven to cut probation and parole violations by a quarter. And maybe the most unbelievable: one that doesn’t cost taxpayers an arm and a leg.

It’s not new surveillance technology or some policy cooked up by a Washington think tank.

In fact, it’s an intervention so simple it’s initially hard to understand how it could be so effective.

The policy is this: talking to family members.

That’s it. Studies have shown people who stay connected to loved ones while they’re incarcerated have higher rates of rehabilitation in prison and lower rates of recidivism once out of it.

Far from a nicety, connecting incarcerated people with their families is in fact a powerful public safety tool — one we desperately need in Virginia.

In 2014, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported more than two-thirds of people released from prison were arrested again within three years. More than 75% were re-arrested within five.

That means substantially more people making multiple stays in Virginia prisons. At $1.5 billion, the Virginia Department of Corrections’ 2023 budget has ballooned by 48.6% since 2014.

The last thing we need is repeat visitors to Virginia prisons on the taxpayer dime. And with phone calls home lowering women’s recidivism by 20%, as Penn State’s 2014 study found, there’s a clear way to turn the ship around.

There’s just one problem.

It is exorbitantly expensive to communicate with loved ones in prison in the commonwealth.

To send an email costs as much as 40 cents. Phone calls are more than 4 cents a minute. Video calls? Twenty cents a minute.

Not only is that more than other states charge incarcerated populations to communicate, it’s more than most people incarcerated in Virginia prisons make in an hour of work.

People imprisoned in Virginia literally can’t afford to stay connected to loved ones. It typically falls to family, 87% of them women, to fill the gap between the low wages people earn inside Virginia’s prisons and the high fees prison vendors charge for phone calls.

New legislation introduced in the 2023 legislative session aims to fix that.

Senate Bill 1274 recognizes the high fees vendors charge for communication in prisons are not just the cost of doing business. Vendors aren’t charging Virginia prisons more because their services cost more inside prisons — they’re doing it because currently, in Virginia, they can.

For example, while it costs more than 4 cents a minute to call from a Virginia prison, the same call with the same vendor providing the exact same service in an Illinois prison costs less than a penny a minute. Virginia taxpayers are effectively supplementing Illinois.

SB1274 would stop that. It would make no-cost phone calls a reality in Virginia prisons, eliminating one of the obstacles preventing Virginia from reaping the rewards of a proven, low-cost way to lower incarceration.

The best part? The money is there: Eliminating steep fees on essential communication services won’t hurt Virginian taxpayers.

But as long as vendors continue to charge too much for prison communications, Virginian taxpayers will pay more in the form of fewer people in the workforce, contributing to local economies or paying taxes.

Prison phone calls are just one tool. But supporting SB1274 is a critical first step to reining in vendors who only care about maximizing shareholder profit.

I look forward to a commonwealth that gets smart on crime by investing in proven strategies like helping people in prison stay connected with their loved ones.

After all, people incarcerated in Virginia are a captive market.

It’s up to lawmakers to make it a fair one.

Republican Del. Carrie Coyner represents the 62nd House District, which includes Chesterfield and Prince George counties and the city of Hopewell.