August 7, 2025 • 12 mins
August 7, 2025- Starting in August, the more than 30,000 people incarcerated in New York don't have to pay to make outgoing phone calls. We unpack this policy decision from the Hochul administration, including how it could benefit society, with Bianca Tylek, founder and executive director of Worth Rises.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
In July, the Whope administration announced the state prison system
with transition to free phone calls for the more than
thirty thousand people held behind bars in New York. The
policy switch, which took effect on August first, has been
a major focus for criminal justice performers and to find
out why and what this transition should and could look
like in the Empire State. Were joined on the Capitol
press room by Bianca Tyleck, executive director of Worth Rises,
(00:26):
an advocacy group working to dismantle the prison industry. Thanks
for making the time, Bianca, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
So much for having me d.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
So prior to this transition. What was the process like
of trying to make a call from within a correctional
facility in New York and how much were the incarcerated
New Yorkers paying for calls?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
So, you know, when people are incarcerated, typically they can
only call out people cannot call them and they are
typically for many years they were making phone call off
of shared wall phones. You know, there might be a
few wall phones per unit. Things have really been dramatically
changing over the last decade where the cost of calls
(01:13):
have come down from you know what We're some in
the nineties, even a couple of dollars a call, or
a couple of dollars a minute even and in the
recent years they've been around three four since a minute
before we were getting to free. We've also seen a
change in the tablets or technology rather specifically that people
(01:36):
are now able to make calls off of tablets rather
than the wall zones, so there's a little bit more access.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And why is it important for the incarceated population to
be able to make phone calls, to have that connection
with the outside world.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
It's always important, right, I mean, I think between the
idea of it's important, and it's also just a critical
human need to be in touch with your family and
for your family to be in touch with you. Every
child deserves to hear you, deserves to hear I love
you from a parent who wants to say that, right,
And so you know, I think it's just an innate
(02:14):
human need that we have to be connected to the
people that love us. But beyond that, in the partial environment, particularly,
communication is one of the best rehabilitative sort of programs
you can provide behind prison laws. People who are connected
to their community are more likely to come home, be
(02:35):
engaged in their rehabilitative practice, through their time, and when
they're coming home be more prepared for release with housing
and employment and all of that. When you're cut off
from your community, you do not have the ability to
prepare for those things. And so when you come home
with housing, with employment, with other community ties and social supports,
(02:56):
you're more likely to come home reanterer society successful and
not recidivate and go back. And that means that this
type of policy generates not just the law that people
need inside and changes sort of the hope that people have,
but it also improves public safety for all of us.
And I do want to say one last thing, which
is that when people are connected to their families as
(03:20):
hope does increase, tensions decrease. And what that means is
studies have now shown that where people have more access
to communication, that disciplinary infections and incidents of violence decline,
which means that that's a safer environment not just for
the incarcerated people, but also for correctional officers. And at
this moment in time, this policy is even more important
(03:43):
because beyond all of these benefits that I just mentioned,
the system here in New York has been shocked a
bit by the correctional officer strike that happened earlier this year,
and many facilities are still not back to normal because
staff numbers are still down, and so a lot of
programs continue to be suspended, and so, you know, providing
(04:05):
free communication helps at least fill some gaps to allow
people to continue their reshabilitative process as the system gets
back to its norm.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So it's my understanding that what we saw nationally was
that the cost to make a phone call for someone
incarcerated began to spike in the nineties, with the cost
no longer being similar to what someone might pay outside
of facility, instead being kind of jacked up as private
(04:36):
entities or even the state looked to make a profit
on that. Was that the experience in New York as well.
Were the incarcerating Yorkers paying inflated fees or was the
cost more reflective of what someone might pay outside of
a prison.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
What happened in New York really did in many ways
mimic what was happening in the rest of the country.
For you know, I would say the first sort of
of these in the eighties and sort of beginning part
of the nineties, races and prisons were somewhat similar to
the outside because there were simply just collect calls. Now,
if we remember collect calls for those of us who
(05:12):
who might those were extraordinarily expensive, both inside and out
of prisons, right, So you know, my mama, mama, if
I made a collect call from our house, so it
was always expensive. Right. But then in nineteen eighty four
is when we had the like breakup of the AT
(05:32):
and T monopoly, and that was really the opening for
the niche prison telecom industry. And that's when race really
started to separate between the inside world and the outside world,
meaning that as the outside started to see communication costs
decrease over the last you know, two three four decades,
(05:53):
inside it was moving in the opposite direction. With out
prisons in jails collecting a commission or a kickback off
of calls, the cost of cost started to increase. And
then only recently, because of regulations at the federal level
and in some states as well as advocacy like ours
worth rises have we finally started to see that tied
(06:15):
shift and call start to become less expensive, and several
states like New York actually moved to completely free communication.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Well before we move on let me reintroduce you for
listeners just joining us. This is the Capital press room
and we're speaking with Bianca Tyleck, executive director of Worth Rises.
So why does it make sense then to ultimately have
free phone calls as opposed to making the incarcerated New
Yorkers pay whatever the cost of the call is, which
(06:46):
obviously is going to be cheaper than the collect rates
that even I remember from long ago, and I think
I saw one press release say we're talking about, you know,
pennies per minute. Why not pass that cost along at
least the actual cost of it?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So I think a few things. So well, the first
thing I'll say is that I live in the city
of New York, right, And in the city of New York,
they replaced all of our payphones with kiosks on every
other block now where anyone in the city can make
a call anywhere in the country for free, right. And
if we can do that for eight million New Yorkers,
we can do that for the thirty three thousand behind bars.
(07:23):
In fact, you can probably do that for all two
million people who are currently incarcerated across the country. Right.
So I think one is to just help us understand
that providing communication is something that obviously we have at
our governments at different times have recognized the value of
and that it's very inexpensive to do in twenty twenty five. Secondly,
I want to say that the people who are incarcerated
(07:45):
are typically not the ones paying for phone calls. When
you have when you're paying a few cents per minute,
but you're also only earning ten cents an hour, right,
the mask doesn't add us. It is not people who
are incarcerated paying for these calls with families on the outside.
And so these families as a results of these costs
(08:08):
are going into debt. In fact, across the nation, one
in three families with an incarcerated loved one goes into
debt simply over the cost of staying connected. And that
is because we disproportionately incarcerate people who come from low
income communities and low income families, and so any cost
when your low income is too much, it is you know,
(08:28):
these are people with fixed incomes who are struggling to
make ends meet, and you deserve not to have this
be an additional burden to them, because, by the way,
they already have phone bills, right, they already have everything
else that they have to pay for, and this is
just added it. And lastly, at the end of the day,
we all benefit from a very very cheap policy. I
(08:50):
stress with so many people that when you think of
programs inside prisons in jails, not that many people can
actually participate. Program participation is often limited for various reason sense,
but one thing that is and can be available to
all people that are incarcerated from the day that they
are incarcerated so that they can invest in their rehabilitation
is communication. And if you give people that access to communication,
(09:14):
it will pay back tenfold.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Is there anything that you're concerned about with maybe the
fine print of this roll out or maybe the infrastructure
that's in place to support free calls that have you
concerned that maybe this won't be rolled out in a
way that is reflective of the announcement, which is freak
(09:36):
phone calls. So anything that you're concerned about that you're
watching for to make sure that it is a meaningful change.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
So, you know, it's super interesting when we asked that
question because that was our concern over the last year.
We've been working on this policy in New York for
about five to six years, and you know, it has
been a discussion with various fake between the legislature and
the administration for about a year uh and Change already
(10:06):
that we would be moving in this direction, and we
worked very closely to ensure that the implementation was was
a smart implementation and affect it right. And so one
of the leading things we were concerned about was obviously
the cost that the state was going to pay to
ensure that this was you know, thoughtful and fiscally responsible.
(10:26):
And we're really glad to report that New York has
among the lowest rates in the country now that it
is paying, beating out California by just a tenth of
assent recently in its contract, and so, you know, that
was something that was high on our list. Also, recently,
the facilities over the last few years were rolling out tablets,
(10:50):
and that was sort of important to make sure that people,
you know, had access to the hardware needed to make
calls sufficiently. But we're glad through you know, see that
people will be able to make their calls off of
their tablets, so there won't be any destruction around phones. So,
you know, I think at this point we are pretty
we feel really confident in the way that this has
(11:11):
been handled leading up to the announcement. Uh, and then
you know, I think the big thing that is left
is to talk about some of the other communication services
like electronic messaging or video calling and things like that
that we, you know, hope people will also have access to,
and just want to make sure that the vendor in
this case, you know, doesn't find alternate ways to try
(11:36):
to make up its margin and by charging let's say
more for entertainment services or other things on its tablet.
So those are the things we're monitoring. But I think
overall we are pleased with the way that implementation has
gone so far.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Well. We've been speaking with Bianca tilek Or, the executive
director of Worth Rises and advocacy group working to dismantle
the prison industry. Banka, thank you so much for making
the time, and congrats on the policy victory.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Thank you so much Staven for having us really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
If you're enjoying the Capitol Pressroom, please consider making a
recurring contribution to help make our journalism possible. To show
your support, visit Capitolpressroom dot org, slash donate
In July, the Whope administration announced the state prison system
with transition to free phone calls for the more than
thirty thousand people held behind bars in New York. The
policy switch, which took effect on August first, has been
a major focus for criminal justice performers and to find
out why and what this transition should and could look
like in the Empire State. Were joined on the Capitol
press room by Bianca Tyleck, executive director of Worth Rises,
(00:26):
an advocacy group working to dismantle the prison industry. Thanks
for making the time, Bianca, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
So much for having me d.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
So prior to this transition. What was the process like
of trying to make a call from within a correctional
facility in New York and how much were the incarcerated
New Yorkers paying for calls?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
So, you know, when people are incarcerated, typically they can
only call out people cannot call them and they are
typically for many years they were making phone call off
of shared wall phones. You know, there might be a
few wall phones per unit. Things have really been dramatically
changing over the last decade where the cost of calls
(01:13):
have come down from you know what We're some in
the nineties, even a couple of dollars a call, or
a couple of dollars a minute even and in the
recent years they've been around three four since a minute
before we were getting to free. We've also seen a
change in the tablets or technology rather specifically that people
(01:36):
are now able to make calls off of tablets rather
than the wall zones, so there's a little bit more access.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
And why is it important for the incarceated population to
be able to make phone calls, to have that connection
with the outside world.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
It's always important, right, I mean, I think between the
idea of it's important, and it's also just a critical
human need to be in touch with your family and
for your family to be in touch with you. Every
child deserves to hear you, deserves to hear I love
you from a parent who wants to say that, right,
And so you know, I think it's just an innate
(02:14):
human need that we have to be connected to the
people that love us. But beyond that, in the partial environment, particularly,
communication is one of the best rehabilitative sort of programs
you can provide behind prison laws. People who are connected
to their community are more likely to come home, be
(02:35):
engaged in their rehabilitative practice, through their time, and when
they're coming home be more prepared for release with housing
and employment and all of that. When you're cut off
from your community, you do not have the ability to
prepare for those things. And so when you come home
with housing, with employment, with other community ties and social supports,
(02:56):
you're more likely to come home reanterer society successful and
not recidivate and go back. And that means that this
type of policy generates not just the law that people
need inside and changes sort of the hope that people have,
but it also improves public safety for all of us.
And I do want to say one last thing, which
is that when people are connected to their families as
(03:20):
hope does increase, tensions decrease. And what that means is
studies have now shown that where people have more access
to communication, that disciplinary infections and incidents of violence decline,
which means that that's a safer environment not just for
the incarcerated people, but also for correctional officers. And at
this moment in time, this policy is even more important
(03:43):
because beyond all of these benefits that I just mentioned,
the system here in New York has been shocked a
bit by the correctional officer strike that happened earlier this year,
and many facilities are still not back to normal because
staff numbers are still down, and so a lot of
programs continue to be suspended, and so, you know, providing
(04:05):
free communication helps at least fill some gaps to allow
people to continue their reshabilitative process as the system gets
back to its norm.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
So it's my understanding that what we saw nationally was
that the cost to make a phone call for someone
incarcerated began to spike in the nineties, with the cost
no longer being similar to what someone might pay outside
of facility, instead being kind of jacked up as private
(04:36):
entities or even the state looked to make a profit
on that. Was that the experience in New York as well.
Were the incarcerating Yorkers paying inflated fees or was the
cost more reflective of what someone might pay outside of
a prison.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
What happened in New York really did in many ways
mimic what was happening in the rest of the country.
For you know, I would say the first sort of
of these in the eighties and sort of beginning part
of the nineties, races and prisons were somewhat similar to
the outside because there were simply just collect calls. Now,
if we remember collect calls for those of us who
(05:12):
who might those were extraordinarily expensive, both inside and out
of prisons, right, So you know, my mama, mama, if
I made a collect call from our house, so it
was always expensive. Right. But then in nineteen eighty four
is when we had the like breakup of the AT
(05:32):
and T monopoly, and that was really the opening for
the niche prison telecom industry. And that's when race really
started to separate between the inside world and the outside world,
meaning that as the outside started to see communication costs
decrease over the last you know, two three four decades,
(05:53):
inside it was moving in the opposite direction. With out
prisons in jails collecting a commission or a kickback off
of calls, the cost of cost started to increase. And
then only recently, because of regulations at the federal level
and in some states as well as advocacy like ours
worth rises have we finally started to see that tied
(06:15):
shift and call start to become less expensive, and several
states like New York actually moved to completely free communication.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Well before we move on let me reintroduce you for
listeners just joining us. This is the Capital press room
and we're speaking with Bianca Tyleck, executive director of Worth Rises.
So why does it make sense then to ultimately have
free phone calls as opposed to making the incarcerated New
Yorkers pay whatever the cost of the call is, which
(06:46):
obviously is going to be cheaper than the collect rates
that even I remember from long ago, and I think
I saw one press release say we're talking about, you know,
pennies per minute. Why not pass that cost along at
least the actual cost of it?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So I think a few things. So well, the first
thing I'll say is that I live in the city
of New York, right, And in the city of New York,
they replaced all of our payphones with kiosks on every
other block now where anyone in the city can make
a call anywhere in the country for free, right. And
if we can do that for eight million New Yorkers,
we can do that for the thirty three thousand behind bars.
(07:23):
In fact, you can probably do that for all two
million people who are currently incarcerated across the country. Right.
So I think one is to just help us understand
that providing communication is something that obviously we have at
our governments at different times have recognized the value of
and that it's very inexpensive to do in twenty twenty five. Secondly,
I want to say that the people who are incarcerated
(07:45):
are typically not the ones paying for phone calls. When
you have when you're paying a few cents per minute,
but you're also only earning ten cents an hour, right,
the mask doesn't add us. It is not people who
are incarcerated paying for these calls with families on the outside.
And so these families as a results of these costs
(08:08):
are going into debt. In fact, across the nation, one
in three families with an incarcerated loved one goes into
debt simply over the cost of staying connected. And that
is because we disproportionately incarcerate people who come from low
income communities and low income families, and so any cost
when your low income is too much, it is you know,
(08:28):
these are people with fixed incomes who are struggling to
make ends meet, and you deserve not to have this
be an additional burden to them, because, by the way,
they already have phone bills, right, they already have everything
else that they have to pay for, and this is
just added it. And lastly, at the end of the day,
we all benefit from a very very cheap policy. I
(08:50):
stress with so many people that when you think of
programs inside prisons in jails, not that many people can
actually participate. Program participation is often limited for various reason sense,
but one thing that is and can be available to
all people that are incarcerated from the day that they
are incarcerated so that they can invest in their rehabilitation
is communication. And if you give people that access to communication,
(09:14):
it will pay back tenfold.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Is there anything that you're concerned about with maybe the
fine print of this roll out or maybe the infrastructure
that's in place to support free calls that have you
concerned that maybe this won't be rolled out in a
way that is reflective of the announcement, which is freak
(09:36):
phone calls. So anything that you're concerned about that you're
watching for to make sure that it is a meaningful change.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
So, you know, it's super interesting when we asked that
question because that was our concern over the last year.
We've been working on this policy in New York for
about five to six years, and you know, it has
been a discussion with various fake between the legislature and
the administration for about a year uh and Change already
(10:06):
that we would be moving in this direction, and we
worked very closely to ensure that the implementation was was
a smart implementation and affect it right. And so one
of the leading things we were concerned about was obviously
the cost that the state was going to pay to
ensure that this was you know, thoughtful and fiscally responsible.
(10:26):
And we're really glad to report that New York has
among the lowest rates in the country now that it
is paying, beating out California by just a tenth of
assent recently in its contract, and so, you know, that
was something that was high on our list. Also, recently,
the facilities over the last few years were rolling out tablets,
(10:50):
and that was sort of important to make sure that people,
you know, had access to the hardware needed to make
calls sufficiently. But we're glad through you know, see that
people will be able to make their calls off of
their tablets, so there won't be any destruction around phones. So,
you know, I think at this point we are pretty
we feel really confident in the way that this has
(11:11):
been handled leading up to the announcement. Uh, and then
you know, I think the big thing that is left
is to talk about some of the other communication services
like electronic messaging or video calling and things like that
that we, you know, hope people will also have access to,
and just want to make sure that the vendor in
this case, you know, doesn't find alternate ways to try
(11:36):
to make up its margin and by charging let's say
more for entertainment services or other things on its tablet.
So those are the things we're monitoring. But I think
overall we are pleased with the way that implementation has
gone so far.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Well. We've been speaking with Bianca tilek Or, the executive
director of Worth Rises and advocacy group working to dismantle
the prison industry. Banka, thank you so much for making
the time, and congrats on the policy victory.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Thank you so much Staven for having us really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
If you're enjoying the Capitol Pressroom, please consider making a
recurring contribution to help make our journalism possible. To show
your support, visit Capitolpressroom dot org, slash donate
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