8 ms·

How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

144 points by SQL2219 8y ago

wallace_f 8y ago
Regulatory capture is terrible. Another example: Once I needed some court records. Not surprisingly, they're recorded in proprietary format, only playable with a proprietary media player, and all to enormous cost to the taxpayer, all while applicable state law demands these court records be open access to the public.
jimnotgym 8y ago
It still amazes me the human waste of US prison sentences. Armed robbery in the UK for a 17 year old, from memory, is likely to attract significantly less than 10 years of actual time served. Yet in the UK we are not overrun with armed robbers. I think the deterrent effect of a long sentence is rather lost on a 17 year-old who is already making bad life decisions.
- Retric 8y ago
  The idea is not a deterrent. The idea is if someone spends most of their life in prison they are not going to be able to commit crimes outside. Effective or not, the reasoning is fairly straightforward.
  - fwn 8y ago
    A sentence has always a correcting, an deterring, a protecting and a vengeance component. (Not very educated on law though. That's what I learned in my mandatory philosophy of law class as an undergrad long ago.)
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      The US is very heavy on protecting and vengeance. There is no interest in correcting and it seems harsh sentences don't deter much either.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > A sentence has always a correcting, an deterring, a protecting and a vengeance component. No, those are among the different theories of the function(s) of criminal punishment. It is not the case that every criminal sentence incorporates all four as elements.
  - kwjenfo 8y ago
    "Effective or not...". That's the problem. The sentence is vengeance. When he comes out of prison at 27, expect him to go back. But, I guess people are happy to spend billions of dollars to keep people in prisons than trying to reform them that would help society.
  - albertgoeswoof 8y ago
    But you have to let them out at some point. The longer they’re in the more likely they’re going to be to commit crime when they do leave.
    - themihai 8y ago
      Without some rehabilitation programs chances are that they will get back to prison regardless of how long or short it's their stay. I guess the gov has to decide if it's worth to pay for rehabilitation or just keep them in jails. The latter is easier to implement and to sell.
      - albertgoeswoof 8y ago
        Re-offending rates are lower in counties that do provide rehabilitation rates, it’s pretty well known. So the US government is wrong on this point if that’s what they’re judging against. Most people in positions of influence aren’t stupid though- clearly there is something else swaying the decision. I would imagine that for-profit prisons are probably the root cause.
    - a1369209993 8y ago
      > But you have to let them out at some point. The idea behind "tough on crime" is that actually, you don't: A nineteen-year-old mugged some people to pay for food/drugs/I'll-ask-my-caddie's-chauffeur-what-else-poor-people-spend-money-on? Great! We can use them as slave labor on and off for the rest of their life, and the less opprotunities for "off", the better.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Well, to be fair, the UK isn't awash in numerous cheap guns either. I agree with the sentiment, but there are plenty of things that more significantly affect the UK/USA's crime rate than deterrence via incarceration.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- betterunix2 8y ago
  The problem in the US is that there was a period of time, still somewhat ongoing, where politicians could score a few points by promising to be "tough on crime." George H. W. Bush once went on TV to say that if longer sentences and mandatory minimum sentences meant paying for more prisons, we would pay for more prisons. One of the worst things about tough on crime politics is the feedback loop it creates -- if your opponent is tough on crime, you would have to be even more tough on crime, so the concept spread across the political spectrum (Charles Schumer is a proud "law enforcement hawk").
  - aaron-lebo 8y ago
    This is easy to observe in judicial elections where said judges get tough prior to elections. But there's more to it than that. The US system doesn't rehabilitate prisoners well, so letting a person who was committing armed robbery (this isn't a small offense, it's terrorizing innocent people) at 17 out at 22 isn't much better than letting them out at 27. The chance of recidivism is high, and so letting them out early is likely to backfire. You'll recall that Bush did successfully use recidivism against Dukakis in 88. He abused that to win politically, but the system failed somewhere.
    - extralego 8y ago
      I think “Rehabilitation” is probably a distraction. A mere chance might be all that they need, and America denies that to even people who have not committed a crime. The lack of social mobility means that regardless of what programs or mindsets one experiences in prison, they are all but forced right back into the same environment that put them there in the first place.
      - aaron-lebo 8y ago
        What you're saying is if there's a chance that someone is reformed, they should be given that chance. But the other possibility is that they aren't. If you're wrong on the first and keep them in longer than they need to be, that wastes their time and potential. If you're wrong on the second and they aren't changed you're putting someone else at risk (someone who is innocent). The probabilities aren't a coin flip. Someone committing armed robbery at 17 had issues. If you know your prison system not only doesn't solve those issues but probably exacerbates them, the odds are you put that person out at 22 (or however early) and not only will they not be changed, but they'll have met real criminals and have few options. That's reckless and people who didn't rob someone at gunpoint shouldn't have to deal with the risk. That's why if we aren't actually rehabilitating, you're basically playing with a loaded gun, which is why risk averse politicians and judges aren't going anywhere near that and by odds the "correct" choice. Rehabilitation isn't a distraction. You have an actual problem that you can solve by: locking them away (we do this), helping them to become productive (rehabilitation), or hoping they've changed. The last isn't a solution, it's trusting in human nature, which in this situation has already shown to be faulty.
Kagerjay 8y ago
This is an interesting read While profiting off inmates may seem predatory to some extent, it does offer a service that was not there before the dotcom age. When we look at prison communication back in the day, it was through locally wired telephone systems. The loved one or family member had to physically be present to speak to the person, but with technology something like an ekiosk (essentially the same types you see at newer airports, olive garden, etc), this does not have to be the case. You can be halfway across the world and still have more than just a phone call with someone who is incarcerated using the internet. Prison phones are a commodity but now it seems to be legalized in a sense with this type of kiosk gateway for buying news, watching TV shows, etc. I've done a bit of work with prisons before, the restrictions for equipment inside of it are absurd. Everything is considered a weapon in prison. I can only imagine the amount of censorship involved with this gateway though, its like bigbrother 1984
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > but with technology something like an ekiosk (essentially the same types you see at newer airports, olive garden, etc) What's an ekiosk? And Olive Garden is a fast food chain isn't it? What do these two things have to do with each other and with prisons? And why do you need ekiosk or fast food chains to solve this? You just need any two tablets and an internet connection.
  - Kagerjay 8y ago
    Ekiosk is just a short term that people use IIRC, similar to "drones" and "quadcopters". Its just a tablet (using a samsung galaxy normally), that is encased and mounted physically. Similar to what you would see at bestbuy when window shopping but more robust. I've seen them in McDonalds and some innovation centers in specific Airports (https://www.afar.com/magazine/the-future-of-airport-dining-is-now https://www.afar.com/magazine/the-future-of-airport-dining-i...). These restaurants utilize empty-dead space in larger central walkway aisles in airports. The one I'm thinking of is in Newark, NJ , I went to that airport on a layover to switzerland last year. Many innovations in restaurants get passed along to prisons after the fact IMO. The demands for higher market innovations builds unique solutions that end up getting pushed to other industries such as prisons.
wayanon 8y ago
How is it moral for people to get rich from imprisonment?
- aaron-lebo 8y ago
  How is it moral to make money off of selling shoddy products and services to people and not actually holding up your end of the deal? But that happens all the time. It's the way of business for many companies. Coinbase takes money from its customers and doesn't give them anything back for months at a time while itself becoming more valuable by the day. That's not moral, but they'll have a front page posts over the next month, celebrating some venture of theirs. Or some CEO who is known for regularly exaggerating/lying or calling people they don't agree with slurs will have people rabidly defending their honor when that rich person has done nothing for them. That's not moral. When the top of society is greedy, you can't expect the lowest rungs to be any better. We barely care about people if they are contributing members of society (unless you've got money), we sure as hell aren't gonna care about prisoners. It's just hypercapitalism. You sound surprised, but it's business. If you can exploit, you do exploit as far as legally possible and then make excuses later. I bet you the contractors have some great justifications for why what they do isn't immoral and is even good and necessary. Short answer: it's not moral, but we're greedy and it's hard to admit that.
  - felix_nagaand 8y ago
    Young teens to thirty somethings that seem interested in social issues aren't terribly interested. This disparity is known as virtue signaling and was pioneered by religion, politicians, and most recently, business. Now it's even trickling down to poor people. It's fashionable to lament the tragedy of the socially poor. Fashionable in much the same way as handing out jobs to the incompetent because their skin is a certain color or their sex is outside the norm. These tactics do little to solve problems, but go a long way towards increasing social divides between percieved groups. Instead of granting jobs to those incapable of meeting the standards their "less diverse" colleagues have we should be rallying for universal health care, workers rights (regardless of protected classes), universal higher education/ trades schools that track straight from high school and are continually redesigned with knowledge of leading educational research, and a massive increase in public funding for pk-12 education that does not unfairly benefit self segregated communities by wealth as a result of land taxes.
blindwatchmaker 8y ago
Prison labor is the natural next step in the race to the bottom for wages.
- aaron-lebo 8y ago
  It's been that way for a long, long time, but it's only useful for cheap products (the labor is inconsistent for obvious reasons) and is stuff that may eventually be automated. Thankfully there's a real limit for abuse. It should be a declining problem.
- gumby 8y ago
  Look at the development of chain gangs in the 1870s US and you'll see it was an explicit mechanism for restoring slave labor to the southern economy. Specifically look up Parchman and Angola which are hardly the only instances, merely the most famous ones.
dplgk 8y ago
30 years for armed robbery? I've seen less for murder. Maybe Kim Kardashian can get him pardoned. On topic: if you see prison as a punishment then paying for email is part of it. If you see prison as a place to store bad people but treat them fairly while they're there, then I guess it's morally wrong. As the risk of whataboutism, charging for email is really the least of our moral problems with prisons. People are profiting greatly from the prisons themselves.
- swalsh 8y ago
  Some people commit crime because they have things biologically wrong with them. I'm not convinced they're anything but a minority. I think most offenders violent or not end up there because a series of bad decisions. I'd hope prisons could be placed to help put people on better paths. Paying extortion prices for email isn't helping them.
intralizee 8y ago
I find the social support systems in America awfully poor from my experience growing up in the US and observing what was provided or obtainable (depending on personal financial status). It's no surprise to see this first world country lacking compassion towards others who didn't find the variables to succeed. The capitalist mindset feeds from irrational behavior and lack of understand towards you are who you are from genetics, environmental factors and all events in a linear ordered progression (life). So many times I've encountered people just write off a person they consider a failure to themselves by having oneself obtain the variables to succeed and refusing to acknowledge the other person(s) didn't have the same experience. How people even have the capability of profiting from these extremely unfortunate people shows everyone is at fault in the US for allowing it. Everyone should take responsibility or leave the country like I did. You're unlikely to succeed when the majority are irrational and you're less fortunate.
- nojvek 8y ago
  This x 1000. If Aliens were trying to find an example of advanced civilization and they saw how things operated in the US, they’d very much think we are a messy and non functioning civilization that would eventually wipe ourselves out. The truth is we as a nation consider prisoners as a second glass citizen. Like humans with defects from a manufacturing plant that need to be contained in jails away from everything. And we have a dark side of capitalism that optimizes for stock value without regard for human element. We are already in the world of AIs optimizing endlessly to increase a magic number without much regard to external consequences.
Invictus0 8y ago
Is it really so hard to compete with this company? It's only a monopoly because no one else went in and did the work. Whats preventing anyone else from making these kiosks and charging a penny per call/email?
- Sharlin 8y ago
  Getting them to prisons? It’s not like the customers (that is, the convicts, not prison officials) have a free choice of the service provider. It’s not a free market and the current situation is perfect for rent-seekers.
- 5555624 8y ago
  As Sharlin says, getting into the prisons. There are other companies, like CorrLinks and AccessCorrections. (I believe CorrLinks has all of the federal prison system, in addition to some states.) These systems can work both ways or one way. For example, federal prisoners can email back and forth via CorrLinks; while some systems, only allow incoming email, which is printed out and provided to the prisoner.
markbnj 8y ago
I was surprised that the article did not mention the fact that Idaho prisoners recently gamed their jpay tablets to steal $225k https://qz.com/1343662/inmates-gamed-their-prison-issued-tablets-to-get-225000-in-credits/ https://qz.com/1343662/inmates-gamed-their-prison-issued-tab...
- mikeyouse 8y ago
  They didn't "steal $225k", they gamed the tablets and sent messages that would have normally cost them $225k in the magic beans that these awful leeches make them buy to communicate with their families.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  I generally wouldn't commend criminal behavior, but good for them.
imnotlost 8y ago
Here you are, after making some mistakes and behaving very badly, the State has full control of you. They then limit how much you can communicate with normal people. They are complicit in you being exploited financially. They look the other way if you are physically or sexually abused. When you've served your time no one will hire you and you're limited from interacting with society normally. And we, society, think this is just great! Which ticker can I buy to get in on this action? Dystopia is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet.
- mindslight 8y ago
  It's an inevitable outcome from the myopic viewing of rights as enumerated primitives, rather than qualitatively - the mob is constantly looking for ways to justify why those rights don't apply to a given person. Prisoners are a super easy target, as their right to liberty is already being violated (justifiably, I think). Driving a car (even though it's de facto mandatory) - bye-bye rights. On privatized commons (like a shopping mall or Faceboot) - bye-bye rights. Forced to contract for (employment, housing, food, etc) - bye-bye rights. Affecting your own consciousness with substances - bye-bye rights. Caught peeing in some bushes - bye-bye all of your rights. And all the while, the majority cheers because it is inherently their norms being enforced. The concept of rights wasn't meant to protect the majority, but good luck getting that point across to the majority!
iamleppert 8y ago
My aunt is in prison and I’ve had to use the JPay app to send her photos and messages. It’s the most awful piece of garbage you’ve ever seen. It barely functions, and doesn’t even handle the aspect ratio of photos correctly, and sends a tiny barely viewable pixelated version. It frequently crashes and fails to send the message although it deducts a “stamp” from your account. It looks like it was hacked together by the cheapest outsource firm they could find and then never updated. There is no customer support at all. There’s a special place reserved in hell for people who use technology in such twisted ways.
WheelsAtLarge 8y ago
I want to be outraged by JPAY but I can't be. 47 cents per email seems like a lot but it's not. Consider a typical home situation, Spectrum charges $50 a month just to get internet service that does not include the hardware, maintenance, taxes and who knows what else. Divide service cost by .47 cents and that works out to something like 100 emails. I know for a fact that I don't send that many emails a month. So, in reality, I would be paying more than that per email. Sure, I use the internet for other purposes so I'm ok with it. JPAY has to deal with all the fixed costs of setting up the internet connections plus ongoing maintenance. There are only a few information services that society wants prisoners to use in prison since all prisoners have been proven to be untrustworthy. Email is one of the few so JPay has to charge high rates just to get a return on their investment. I'm not crying for them since they are making a good return. I don't like the situation but the alternative is no e-mail. It's obvious prisons don't want the responsibility of providing it and private companies want a high return for doing it. Like it or not JPAY is providing a service that wouldn't exist otherwise. 47 cents per email is high but it's acceptable given the alternative.
- chillwaves 8y ago
  .47 is not reasonable by any measure. You can't compare being in prison with signing up with an ISP. Prisoners also have basically no income. They are often charged per day on their accounts as well and are charged high mark up for basic commissary items and outrageous mark up for phone calls (even more than email). This is exploitation, plain and simple.
- blub 8y ago
  Actually the cost should be zero. The prison has an internet connection anyway, one would just need a router with VPN support (to separate traffic) and 10 locked down wired terminals. Charging per email is complete bollocks.
mnm1 8y ago
Of course, if you can profit nicely off of people's misery and suffering, it'd almost be un-American not to. These perverse incentives go a long way to explaining what a shitty society we live in. Over two and a half million people locked up isn't good enough. Let's charge them for email. Let's root for them to get raped or murdered inside. They must deserve it even if over ninety percent didn't even have a chance at a trial when they were threatened with a plea deal or an absurd amount of time in jail. There is so much hate and cruelty here, it's beyond sickening.
JudasGoat 8y ago
The only way to repair this is to allow competition where the inmates can choose from a list of applications built to whatever security standard.

144 points by SQL2219 8y ago

Regulatory capture is terrible. Another example: Once I needed some court records. Not surprisingly, they're recorded in proprietary format, only playable with a proprietary media player, and all to enormous cost to the taxpayer, all while applicable state law demands these court records be open access to the public.

jimnotgym 8y ago

It still amazes me the human waste of US prison sentences. Armed robbery in the UK for a 17 year old, from memory, is likely to attract significantly less than 10 years of actual time served. Yet in the UK we are not overrun with armed robbers. I think the deterrent effect of a long sentence is rather lost on a 17 year-old who is already making bad life decisions.

Retric 8y ago
The idea is not a deterrent. The idea is if someone spends most of their life in prison they are not going to be able to commit crimes outside. Effective or not, the reasoning is fairly straightforward.
- fwn 8y ago
  A sentence has always a correcting, an deterring, a protecting and a vengeance component. (Not very educated on law though. That's what I learned in my mandatory philosophy of law class as an undergrad long ago.)
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    The US is very heavy on protecting and vengeance. There is no interest in correcting and it seems harsh sentences don't deter much either.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > A sentence has always a correcting, an deterring, a protecting and a vengeance component. No, those are among the different theories of the function(s) of criminal punishment. It is not the case that every criminal sentence incorporates all four as elements.
- kwjenfo 8y ago
  "Effective or not...". That's the problem. The sentence is vengeance. When he comes out of prison at 27, expect him to go back. But, I guess people are happy to spend billions of dollars to keep people in prisons than trying to reform them that would help society.
- albertgoeswoof 8y ago
  But you have to let them out at some point. The longer they’re in the more likely they’re going to be to commit crime when they do leave.
  - themihai 8y ago
    Without some rehabilitation programs chances are that they will get back to prison regardless of how long or short it's their stay. I guess the gov has to decide if it's worth to pay for rehabilitation or just keep them in jails. The latter is easier to implement and to sell.
    - albertgoeswoof 8y ago
      Re-offending rates are lower in counties that do provide rehabilitation rates, it’s pretty well known. So the US government is wrong on this point if that’s what they’re judging against. Most people in positions of influence aren’t stupid though- clearly there is something else swaying the decision. I would imagine that for-profit prisons are probably the root cause.
  - a1369209993 8y ago
    > But you have to let them out at some point. The idea behind "tough on crime" is that actually, you don't: A nineteen-year-old mugged some people to pay for food/drugs/I'll-ask-my-caddie's-chauffeur-what-else-poor-people-spend-money-on? Great! We can use them as slave labor on and off for the rest of their life, and the less opprotunities for "off", the better.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
Well, to be fair, the UK isn't awash in numerous cheap guns either. I agree with the sentiment, but there are plenty of things that more significantly affect the UK/USA's crime rate than deterrence via incarceration.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
betterunix2 8y ago
The problem in the US is that there was a period of time, still somewhat ongoing, where politicians could score a few points by promising to be "tough on crime." George H. W. Bush once went on TV to say that if longer sentences and mandatory minimum sentences meant paying for more prisons, we would pay for more prisons. One of the worst things about tough on crime politics is the feedback loop it creates -- if your opponent is tough on crime, you would have to be even more tough on crime, so the concept spread across the political spectrum (Charles Schumer is a proud "law enforcement hawk").
- aaron-lebo 8y ago
  This is easy to observe in judicial elections where said judges get tough prior to elections. But there's more to it than that. The US system doesn't rehabilitate prisoners well, so letting a person who was committing armed robbery (this isn't a small offense, it's terrorizing innocent people) at 17 out at 22 isn't much better than letting them out at 27. The chance of recidivism is high, and so letting them out early is likely to backfire. You'll recall that Bush did successfully use recidivism against Dukakis in 88. He abused that to win politically, but the system failed somewhere.
  - extralego 8y ago
    I think “Rehabilitation” is probably a distraction. A mere chance might be all that they need, and America denies that to even people who have not committed a crime. The lack of social mobility means that regardless of what programs or mindsets one experiences in prison, they are all but forced right back into the same environment that put them there in the first place.
    - aaron-lebo 8y ago
      What you're saying is if there's a chance that someone is reformed, they should be given that chance. But the other possibility is that they aren't. If you're wrong on the first and keep them in longer than they need to be, that wastes their time and potential. If you're wrong on the second and they aren't changed you're putting someone else at risk (someone who is innocent). The probabilities aren't a coin flip. Someone committing armed robbery at 17 had issues. If you know your prison system not only doesn't solve those issues but probably exacerbates them, the odds are you put that person out at 22 (or however early) and not only will they not be changed, but they'll have met real criminals and have few options. That's reckless and people who didn't rob someone at gunpoint shouldn't have to deal with the risk. That's why if we aren't actually rehabilitating, you're basically playing with a loaded gun, which is why risk averse politicians and judges aren't going anywhere near that and by odds the "correct" choice. Rehabilitation isn't a distraction. You have an actual problem that you can solve by: locking them away (we do this), helping them to become productive (rehabilitation), or hoping they've changed. The last isn't a solution, it's trusting in human nature, which in this situation has already shown to be faulty.

Kagerjay 8y ago

This is an interesting read While profiting off inmates may seem predatory to some extent, it does offer a service that was not there before the dotcom age. When we look at prison communication back in the day, it was through locally wired telephone systems. The loved one or family member had to physically be present to speak to the person, but with technology something like an ekiosk (essentially the same types you see at newer airports, olive garden, etc), this does not have to be the case. You can be halfway across the world and still have more than just a phone call with someone who is incarcerated using the internet. Prison phones are a commodity but now it seems to be legalized in a sense with this type of kiosk gateway for buying news, watching TV shows, etc. I've done a bit of work with prisons before, the restrictions for equipment inside of it are absurd. Everything is considered a weapon in prison. I can only imagine the amount of censorship involved with this gateway though, its like bigbrother 1984

chrisseaton 8y ago
> but with technology something like an ekiosk (essentially the same types you see at newer airports, olive garden, etc) What's an ekiosk? And Olive Garden is a fast food chain isn't it? What do these two things have to do with each other and with prisons? And why do you need ekiosk or fast food chains to solve this? You just need any two tablets and an internet connection.
- Kagerjay 8y ago
  Ekiosk is just a short term that people use IIRC, similar to "drones" and "quadcopters". Its just a tablet (using a samsung galaxy normally), that is encased and mounted physically. Similar to what you would see at bestbuy when window shopping but more robust. I've seen them in McDonalds and some innovation centers in specific Airports (https://www.afar.com/magazine/the-future-of-airport-dining-is-now https://www.afar.com/magazine/the-future-of-airport-dining-i...). These restaurants utilize empty-dead space in larger central walkway aisles in airports. The one I'm thinking of is in Newark, NJ , I went to that airport on a layover to switzerland last year. Many innovations in restaurants get passed along to prisons after the fact IMO. The demands for higher market innovations builds unique solutions that end up getting pushed to other industries such as prisons.

wayanon 8y ago

How is it moral for people to get rich from imprisonment?

aaron-lebo 8y ago
How is it moral to make money off of selling shoddy products and services to people and not actually holding up your end of the deal? But that happens all the time. It's the way of business for many companies. Coinbase takes money from its customers and doesn't give them anything back for months at a time while itself becoming more valuable by the day. That's not moral, but they'll have a front page posts over the next month, celebrating some venture of theirs. Or some CEO who is known for regularly exaggerating/lying or calling people they don't agree with slurs will have people rabidly defending their honor when that rich person has done nothing for them. That's not moral. When the top of society is greedy, you can't expect the lowest rungs to be any better. We barely care about people if they are contributing members of society (unless you've got money), we sure as hell aren't gonna care about prisoners. It's just hypercapitalism. You sound surprised, but it's business. If you can exploit, you do exploit as far as legally possible and then make excuses later. I bet you the contractors have some great justifications for why what they do isn't immoral and is even good and necessary. Short answer: it's not moral, but we're greedy and it's hard to admit that.
- felix_nagaand 8y ago
  Young teens to thirty somethings that seem interested in social issues aren't terribly interested. This disparity is known as virtue signaling and was pioneered by religion, politicians, and most recently, business. Now it's even trickling down to poor people. It's fashionable to lament the tragedy of the socially poor. Fashionable in much the same way as handing out jobs to the incompetent because their skin is a certain color or their sex is outside the norm. These tactics do little to solve problems, but go a long way towards increasing social divides between percieved groups. Instead of granting jobs to those incapable of meeting the standards their "less diverse" colleagues have we should be rallying for universal health care, workers rights (regardless of protected classes), universal higher education/ trades schools that track straight from high school and are continually redesigned with knowledge of leading educational research, and a massive increase in public funding for pk-12 education that does not unfairly benefit self segregated communities by wealth as a result of land taxes.

blindwatchmaker 8y ago

Prison labor is the natural next step in the race to the bottom for wages.

aaron-lebo 8y ago
It's been that way for a long, long time, but it's only useful for cheap products (the labor is inconsistent for obvious reasons) and is stuff that may eventually be automated. Thankfully there's a real limit for abuse. It should be a declining problem.
gumby 8y ago
Look at the development of chain gangs in the 1870s US and you'll see it was an explicit mechanism for restoring slave labor to the southern economy. Specifically look up Parchman and Angola which are hardly the only instances, merely the most famous ones.

dplgk 8y ago

30 years for armed robbery? I've seen less for murder. Maybe Kim Kardashian can get him pardoned. On topic: if you see prison as a punishment then paying for email is part of it. If you see prison as a place to store bad people but treat them fairly while they're there, then I guess it's morally wrong. As the risk of whataboutism, charging for email is really the least of our moral problems with prisons. People are profiting greatly from the prisons themselves.

swalsh 8y ago
Some people commit crime because they have things biologically wrong with them. I'm not convinced they're anything but a minority. I think most offenders violent or not end up there because a series of bad decisions. I'd hope prisons could be placed to help put people on better paths. Paying extortion prices for email isn't helping them.

intralizee 8y ago

I find the social support systems in America awfully poor from my experience growing up in the US and observing what was provided or obtainable (depending on personal financial status). It's no surprise to see this first world country lacking compassion towards others who didn't find the variables to succeed. The capitalist mindset feeds from irrational behavior and lack of understand towards you are who you are from genetics, environmental factors and all events in a linear ordered progression (life). So many times I've encountered people just write off a person they consider a failure to themselves by having oneself obtain the variables to succeed and refusing to acknowledge the other person(s) didn't have the same experience. How people even have the capability of profiting from these extremely unfortunate people shows everyone is at fault in the US for allowing it. Everyone should take responsibility or leave the country like I did. You're unlikely to succeed when the majority are irrational and you're less fortunate.

nojvek 8y ago
This x 1000. If Aliens were trying to find an example of advanced civilization and they saw how things operated in the US, they’d very much think we are a messy and non functioning civilization that would eventually wipe ourselves out. The truth is we as a nation consider prisoners as a second glass citizen. Like humans with defects from a manufacturing plant that need to be contained in jails away from everything. And we have a dark side of capitalism that optimizes for stock value without regard for human element. We are already in the world of AIs optimizing endlessly to increase a magic number without much regard to external consequences.

Invictus0 8y ago

Is it really so hard to compete with this company? It's only a monopoly because no one else went in and did the work. Whats preventing anyone else from making these kiosks and charging a penny per call/email?

Sharlin 8y ago
Getting them to prisons? It’s not like the customers (that is, the convicts, not prison officials) have a free choice of the service provider. It’s not a free market and the current situation is perfect for rent-seekers.
5555624 8y ago
As Sharlin says, getting into the prisons. There are other companies, like CorrLinks and AccessCorrections. (I believe CorrLinks has all of the federal prison system, in addition to some states.) These systems can work both ways or one way. For example, federal prisoners can email back and forth via CorrLinks; while some systems, only allow incoming email, which is printed out and provided to the prisoner.

markbnj 8y ago

I was surprised that the article did not mention the fact that Idaho prisoners recently gamed their jpay tablets to steal $225k https://qz.com/1343662/inmates-gamed-their-prison-issued-tablets-to-get-225000-in-credits/ https://qz.com/1343662/inmates-gamed-their-prison-issued-tab...

mikeyouse 8y ago
They didn't "steal $225k", they gamed the tablets and sent messages that would have normally cost them $225k in the magic beans that these awful leeches make them buy to communicate with their families.
paulie_a 8y ago
I generally wouldn't commend criminal behavior, but good for them.

imnotlost 8y ago

Here you are, after making some mistakes and behaving very badly, the State has full control of you. They then limit how much you can communicate with normal people. They are complicit in you being exploited financially. They look the other way if you are physically or sexually abused. When you've served your time no one will hire you and you're limited from interacting with society normally. And we, society, think this is just great! Which ticker can I buy to get in on this action? Dystopia is here, it's just not evenly distributed yet.

mindslight 8y ago
It's an inevitable outcome from the myopic viewing of rights as enumerated primitives, rather than qualitatively - the mob is constantly looking for ways to justify why those rights don't apply to a given person. Prisoners are a super easy target, as their right to liberty is already being violated (justifiably, I think). Driving a car (even though it's de facto mandatory) - bye-bye rights. On privatized commons (like a shopping mall or Faceboot) - bye-bye rights. Forced to contract for (employment, housing, food, etc) - bye-bye rights. Affecting your own consciousness with substances - bye-bye rights. Caught peeing in some bushes - bye-bye all of your rights. And all the while, the majority cheers because it is inherently their norms being enforced. The concept of rights wasn't meant to protect the majority, but good luck getting that point across to the majority!

iamleppert 8y ago

My aunt is in prison and I’ve had to use the JPay app to send her photos and messages. It’s the most awful piece of garbage you’ve ever seen. It barely functions, and doesn’t even handle the aspect ratio of photos correctly, and sends a tiny barely viewable pixelated version. It frequently crashes and fails to send the message although it deducts a “stamp” from your account. It looks like it was hacked together by the cheapest outsource firm they could find and then never updated. There is no customer support at all. There’s a special place reserved in hell for people who use technology in such twisted ways.

WheelsAtLarge 8y ago

I want to be outraged by JPAY but I can't be. 47 cents per email seems like a lot but it's not. Consider a typical home situation, Spectrum charges $50 a month just to get internet service that does not include the hardware, maintenance, taxes and who knows what else. Divide service cost by .47 cents and that works out to something like 100 emails. I know for a fact that I don't send that many emails a month. So, in reality, I would be paying more than that per email. Sure, I use the internet for other purposes so I'm ok with it. JPAY has to deal with all the fixed costs of setting up the internet connections plus ongoing maintenance. There are only a few information services that society wants prisoners to use in prison since all prisoners have been proven to be untrustworthy. Email is one of the few so JPay has to charge high rates just to get a return on their investment. I'm not crying for them since they are making a good return. I don't like the situation but the alternative is no e-mail. It's obvious prisons don't want the responsibility of providing it and private companies want a high return for doing it. Like it or not JPAY is providing a service that wouldn't exist otherwise. 47 cents per email is high but it's acceptable given the alternative.

chillwaves 8y ago
.47 is not reasonable by any measure. You can't compare being in prison with signing up with an ISP. Prisoners also have basically no income. They are often charged per day on their accounts as well and are charged high mark up for basic commissary items and outrageous mark up for phone calls (even more than email). This is exploitation, plain and simple.
blub 8y ago
Actually the cost should be zero. The prison has an internet connection anyway, one would just need a router with VPN support (to separate traffic) and 10 locked down wired terminals. Charging per email is complete bollocks.

mnm1 8y ago

Of course, if you can profit nicely off of people's misery and suffering, it'd almost be un-American not to. These perverse incentives go a long way to explaining what a shitty society we live in. Over two and a half million people locked up isn't good enough. Let's charge them for email. Let's root for them to get raped or murdered inside. They must deserve it even if over ninety percent didn't even have a chance at a trial when they were threatened with a plea deal or an absurd amount of time in jail. There is so much hate and cruelty here, it's beyond sickening.

JudasGoat 8y ago

The only way to repair this is to allow competition where the inmates can choose from a list of applications built to whatever security standard.