Yes the massive fees of Jpay/iCare and all the other schemes like Union Supply Direct. I've always assumed no cheaper alternatives because you'd need to lobby s

Yes the massive fees of Jpay/iCare and all the other schemes like Union Supply Direct. I've always assumed no cheaper alternatives because you'd need to lobby some senator massive money to get your service allowed inside a state's prison system. One thing I do is send prisoners things they can trade instead of Jpay account load fees, for example in a women's prison any magazine subscription that includes a lot of perfume samples they are worth their weight in gold inside the walls for trading. Good math books as well, such as Sheldon Axler's Pre-Calc book because it includes fully worked out answers instead of just magic answers, but unfortunately I can only find hardcover and some prisons still don't allow hardcover. You also have to use certain book companies, like Books A Million since they include invoices and you can be sure they are new books instead of Amazon where I've been screwed many times sending to inmates where even if it says 'fulfilled by Amazon' it ends up being a 3rd party vendor. Best things you can have in jail is a radio to pick up local stations, something to trade with such as coffee, and letters from the outside on mail call because everybody waits for mail call. They have Jpay mp3 players now in some states which are of course ridiculously expensive. If you know somebody in jail doing hard time, a good idea is learn something with them. Send them math books, do the books with them and trade letters. It's motivation because often I'd lapse behind and find out the friend I was writing had already slayed the next chapter and I didn't even start. My next Saturday morning was spent catching up. Math education has a half life of hundreds of years, perfect for prisoners. I found vet books on animal care a great idea for prisoners who need a job upon release. Lot's of kennel companies will hire ex cons to start at the bottom cleaning kennels and administering meds, and they can take vet tech exams from there to move up. I sent Saunder's guides since most vet tech exams use these. Another good book is Kernighan's book 'D is for Digital' (renamed in recent editions), it's an excellent book to teach inmates how technology works when they've been in for a long time.