Massachusetts Jail Commissary Reform Takes a Bite Out of Revenue

There once was a time when legendary former Bristol County Sheriff Republican Tom Hodgson collected a $5 per day "care and custody" fee from county inmates. Hodgson thought it fair to charge a medical co-payment and a fee for a haircut.

After all, why should taxpayers foot the whole bill?

"Hard Time Hodgson," as his political adversaries called him, thought it was only right that inmates share in the cost of their incarceration with the taxpayers.

The progressive Massachusetts Legislature and judicial system didn't see eye to eye with Hodgson.

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Now, free unlimited inmate phone calls are costing taxpayers millions, stretching sheriffs' budgets and allowing inmates to make drug deals, handle gang matters, intimidate witnesses, and cause all sorts of problems, according to sheriffs' testimony before a recent legislative committee.

That's not the only problem behind bars in the Commonwealth, though.

A law adopted in 2023 says, "State correctional facilities, state prisons, county correctional facilities, and entities contracting with such facilities shall not charge more than 3 percent over the purchase cost for commissary items."

The law requires the Department of Corrections and the sheriffs to "maximize discounts procured from bulk purchasing of commissary items or other contracting opportunities that reduce the cost of such items."

Prison commissaries cannot "receive commissions, revenue, or other financial incentives in any contract with a seller, supplier or vendor of commissary items."

Massachusetts Sheriff's Association President Patrick McDermott told lawmakers, "There is a loss in our commissary revenue that we typically had available to us that went directly back into programming."

State House News Service reported that McDermott told the hearing, "Those commissary reforms, with response to the legislators' intent, resulted in an additional $4.5 million lost in programming revenue."