People in Colorado prisons and youth detention facilities will soon be able to make free phone calls

The high cost of calling home from inside Colorado prisons and youth detention centers can have lasting effects on people who are incarcerated and their families. State lawmakers hope to reduce those impacts starting in September, under a new law that makes those phone calls free.

House Bill 1133 will make Colorado the third state in the nation to cover the cost of phone calls made by people who are incarcerated and their families in state facilities. Gov. Jared Polis hasn’t yet signed the measure but is expected to soon.

Currently, people incarcerated in Colorado pay about 8 cents per minute for a phone call and typically talk on the phone for about 7 minutes each day. The cost of those calls is covered by wages earned by people behind bars if they have a job, or by…