Keeping in contact with loved ones can be a vital lifeline for incarcerated people, and can reduce recidivism. But research shows over a third of families with relatives in prison go into debt just paying for phone calls and visits.
Beggs, 36, is a nail tech supporting four children. To stay in touch and save money, her fiance, John Ketchum, first calls her several times a day for two to three minutes.
They communicated more often — and for less money — at the beginning of the year, when Ketchum was at the Utah State Prison, where he was initially incarcerated after pleading guilty to forgery and possession of a stolen vehicle. There, a half-hour on the phone cost half the price of a 15-minute call at the county jail, where he was transferred on good behavior.
The Utah County Jail in Spanish Fork on Thursday, June 15, 2023. The facility once charged the highest cost for inmate phone calls of all county jails in the state.Christina Messmore’s husband, Justin Messmore, was transferred to Utah County Jail from Iowa in early 2021, where he stayed until last November.
Under the contract extension, the Utah County Jail should now be charging people $0.21 cents a minute for both in-state and out-of-state calls, according to Lt. Regan Clark, with the Utah County Sheriff’s Office corrections division. The total amounts to $4.20 per 20 minutes, and according to the contract extension, the county recoups 75% of that revenue.
Messmore’s husband, a sex offender, is now incarcerated at the Central Utah Prison, where out-of-state fees apply — but even after all the additions when she calls from Iowa, it ended up being around $2.80 per 15 minutes for them to chat.
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