On December 1, 2023, Massachusetts made all phone calls from its state correctional facilities free. Not reduced. Free. Governor Healey signed the legislation, the Massachusetts Department of Correction implemented it across all 14 facilities, and what happened next is worth naming: call volume went up 139 percent. Call duration went up 152 percent. Electronic communications went up 560 percent.
Those numbers are not statistics. They are a description of what incarcerated parents and their families did when the cost barrier was removed. They called more. They talked longer. They wrote more. The demand for connection with their families had always been there. The cost of that connection had been suppressing it. When Massachusetts removed the cost, the families responded by doing exactly what the research said they would do: they stayed connected.
I went into the federal system, not the Massachusetts DOC. I went in when my kids were 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, and 20. The cost of calling my family was real and it shaped what I could do with the time I had. When I look at those numbers from Massachusetts, at a 139 percent increase in call volume after costs were eliminated, I see what was being lost before. I see the calls that did not happen because the money was not there. I see the 9-year-olds who did not hear their parent's voice that week. Massachusetts fixed that. The question now is what the parents inside those facilities do with the access they have.
What the free calls made visible
The political debate about whether free calls cost too much is real and it will continue. Statewide, the program runs about $12 million per year in state money, and some sheriffs have raised concerns about costs and about whether the volume of calls has reduced participation in rehabilitation programs. That debate belongs in a policy forum. What belongs in this article is the simpler observation: families wanted to connect more than the old cost structure allowed them to.
A parent in Massachusetts who has free, unlimited calls to their children and does not use them is making a choice. A parent who uses those calls to check in by rote, to drift through the minutes without genuine engagement, is also making a choice. The removal of the cost barrier did not change what the calls need to contain to matter to the child. It just made the call itself possible.
The question every incarcerated parent in Massachusetts has to answer is the same question every incarcerated parent in every state answers: what do I do with the access I have? Massachusetts gave more access than most states. Use it.
MCI Framingham and the women's incarceration story in Massachusetts
Massachusetts Correctional Institution Framingham is the primary women's correctional facility in the state. It opened in 1877 and has operated continuously since then, making it one of the oldest women's prisons in the country still in use. Every woman sentenced to state prison in Massachusetts ends up at Framingham, in a medium-security facility about 25 miles west of Boston in Middlesex County.
For a woman in Boston whose children are with family in Dorchester or Roxbury, Framingham is close enough to visit regularly, and free calls mean daily contact is possible. For a woman from Springfield or Pittsfield in western Massachusetts, Framingham is 90 miles east, still manageable but a longer drive with children in the car.
The concentration of the women's population at one facility means that every woman in the Massachusetts system navigates the same visiting schedule, the same procedures, the same physical space. Families across the state arrive at the same place on the same visiting days. The community that forms in that visiting room, between families who do not know each other but share the same circumstance, is real and sometimes sustaining. Children who come to Framingham with a parent are not alone in what they are navigating.
The decision that free calls and a good facility do not make
Massachusetts has removed the cost of phone calls. It has a women's facility close to the state's population center. It has programs, reentry services, and a correctional culture that, while not perfect, reflects ongoing investment in rehabilitation. None of that makes the fundamental choice for either parent.
My wife never said a word against me to our six children during 66 months. She had every reason. She had six kids in a situation I had created. She chose to let them love me without penalty. What I have with my adult children now is the direct result of that choice.
The parent inside a Massachusetts facility carries the same obligation. A free phone call is not an improvement if the parent uses it to pressure the outside caregiver, to complain about the facility, to drift through contact without genuine engagement. A free call that opens with real curiosity about the child's specific life, that responds to what the child actually says, that ends with something the child will carry, does more for the relationship than a hundred calls that drift. The cost was the old barrier. The quality of attention is the remaining barrier. That one belongs entirely to the parent.
What the ages mean in Massachusetts
My children were 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, and 20 when I went in.
The 9-year-old in Massachusetts whose parent is at MCI Norfolk or Shirley or Souza-Baranowski needs the same thing every 9-year-old in this series needs: to hear directly and often that none of what happened is their fault. Children under 10 build private, silent explanations for a parent's absence. The explanation they most often reach is that they caused it. That belief settles in quietly and shapes how the child understands themselves for years. In Massachusetts, where free calls are available every day, there is no cost reason to not say it. Say it on every call: this is not your fault. I love you. I am still your parent.
The 11 and 12-year-old in Massachusetts is navigating middle school in a state with wide disparities between wealthy and struggling communities. A child from Boston's Roxbury or Dorchester with a parent at Concord or Norfolk is navigating middle school with the social weight of a parent's incarceration and the specific inequity that the incarceration came from a neighborhood that has absorbed more of the system's costs than others. That child is building their identity in a context that includes both the fact of the incarceration and the cultural reality of Boston, a city that holds enormous wealth and concentrated poverty within a few miles of each other. The incarcerated parent who uses Massachusetts's free daily calls to track the 12-year-old's specific life, who asks real questions and remembers the answers, who follows up on the specific thing the child mentioned last week by asking about it this week by name, is doing the most valuable parenting available from inside a facility. That continuity of attention, maintained across free daily calls that cost nothing, is what keeps the child in the relationship.
The 15-year-old will evaluate every contact for authenticity. Do not use the free call to lecture. Do not use it to instruct. The teenager who feels genuinely known by the incarcerated parent will answer. The one who feels managed will not. Ask more than you tell.
The 18 and 20-year-old is an adult making choices about the relationship. Show up as someone worth the choice.
What the outside parent carries in Massachusetts
The outside parent in Massachusetts is managing children and a household in a state with some of the highest costs of living in the country. Boston-area housing costs are among the highest in the Northeast. The financial pressure on families already managing a parent's incarceration is real.
What the outside parent needs from the incarcerated parent is acknowledgment. One free call where the person inside names specifically what the outside parent is carrying and says thank you, genuinely and specifically, is worth more than any instruction delivered from Concord or Norfolk or Shirley. My wife carried six children through 66 months and deserved to hear that I saw it. I said so as often as the access allowed.
For the outside parent: in Massachusetts, where free calls mean the channel is always open, the discipline of speaking carefully about the incarcerated parent in front of the children matters even more. There are no financial barriers to staying connected in Massachusetts's state system. There are only choices. Choose to protect the children from the adult conflict. My wife made that choice every day. What I have now is what it made possible.
How communication works in Massachusetts
Phone calls from all 14 Massachusetts DOC facilities have been free since December 1, 2023. No cap on number of calls. The program is administered through Securus Technologies. For account setup or questions about phone service, contact Securus at 1-800-844-6591 or visit securustech.net.
Email messaging is available through Corrlinks Secure Mail at the state level. Family members can contact mass.gov for setup instructions. At some facilities including MCI Cedar Junction and Souza-Baranowski, JPay provides email, money transfers, video visitation, and tablets. Access Corrections (Secure Deposits) handles inmate funds at state facilities.
Video visitation is available through Securus ConnectNetwork at most facilities.
For in-person visitation: the inmate must submit the visitor's name to the prison administrator and notify visitors of their status. Visitors complete the Visitor Application Form (available at mass.gov) and submit it to the superintendent of the applicable facility. Must currently be on the inmate's visitor list. Felony conviction requires additional review. Valid photo ID required. All visitors must pass security screening. Visitor eligibility may be affected by restraining orders.
DOC inmate locator: (866) 277-7477. DOC headquarters: 50 Maple Street, Milford, MA 01757; (508) 422-3300. Website: mass.gov/doc.
Key facility contacts: MCI Norfolk: 2 Clark Street, Norfolk, MA 02056; (508) 660-5900. MCI Framingham: 99 Loring Drive, Framingham, MA 01701; (508) 532-5100.
Federal inmates in Massachusetts are held at FMC Devens (Federal Medical Center; medium-security; medical and mental health specialty) or other BOP facilities. BOP communication uses TRULINCS for email via CORRLINKS and TRUFONE for phone. FCC rate caps apply; First Step Act programming offers 300 free minutes per month.
Where this leaves you
Massachusetts removed the cost of phone calls and watched families respond by calling 139 percent more often, talking 152 percent longer, and communicating electronically 560 percent more than before. The data says what the families already knew: the demand for connection was always there. The cost was the barrier.
Massachusetts removed the barrier. What remains is the question of how both parents use the access. The incarcerated parent who calls every day and shows up fully for those calls, who asks real questions and stays with the real answers, who says directly to the 9-year-old that none of this is their fault, who tracks the middle schooler's specific life week by week, who listens to the teenager without turning the call into a lecture: that parent is doing something the 139 percent increase in call volume was always trying to do. The outside parent who keeps the door open, who speaks carefully about the incarcerated parent in front of the children who are listening, who makes the drive to Framingham or Concord or Norfolk with the children in the car so they can see that their parent is still real and still there, is doing the same.
Both choices are available every day, at no charge, from inside any Massachusetts facility. The cost of the call is gone. Make the rest count.