LOS ANGELES — Despite concerns over the costs of the program and how it will be funded, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion Tuesday to provide free phone calls for jail inmates.
“The data is crystal clear — one-third of families go into debt trying to maintain contact with those who are incarcerated, and this primarily impacts low-income people of color, specifically Black women and Latinas,” Supervisor Hilda Solis, who introduced the motion, said in a statement following the vote. “Free phone calls are about transforming how Los Angeles County goes about business. We should not be in the business of burdening families already struggling to cope and survive. Rather, we need to be about creating safety nets that break the chains of systemic racism and inequities.”
The proposal, however, was met with some unexpected debate when Supervisor Holly Mitchell — who originally co-sponsored Solis’ motion — asked for the matter to be delayed for 90 days so another report could be prepared analyzing the full fiscal impact of no longer charging for inmate calls.
Mitchell insisted she was not opposed to the idea of free calls but said her concern was strictly budgetary, noting that the board had previously approved roughly two dozen other motions with unspecified funding sources that will impact the county budget.
Solis responded with an impassioned plea for her colleagues to move forward on the issue, saying Tuesday’s motion was her third attempt to get the costs removed for inmate phone calls, and another delay would just continue a financial burden for relatives of inmates.
“I don’t think we can wait any longer,” she said during the meeting.
County CEO Fesia Davenport told the board that based on the current volume of inmate calls, the annual fiscal impact of making calls free would be about $27.6 million. But since the number of calls would likely increase once they are free, the true cost would be closer to about…
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