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It's not just the costs that get you, but also the arbitrary minutes-per-month limit. I was in federal prison for years. One week from release, I got an email
by anon-uaSh1mur 3y ago
It's not just the costs that get you, but also the arbitrary minutes-per-month limit.
I was in federal prison for years. One week from release, I got an email about a friend in poor health. I had to pay by the minute to access that email account at a prison kiosk, by the way. One minute of email access cost roughly the same as what I was paid for a hour's labor at my prison job as a GED instructor.
I called my friend as soon as I could get access to a phone. I had 5 minutes left of my monthly minutes budget because I'd spent nearly all of my 200 minute monthly allowance release planning with family. As we had only a few moments on the phone, they demanded I come see them the moment I was released. They had something very important they wanted to talk about.
I spent the next few days appealing to every prison official for extra phone minutes to speak with my dying friend. Several of them had phones on their desks as we spoke, and could have just picked up the phone and given me a few minutes right then and there. They all had the authority and ability to assist, and they all refused. From case manager, church chaplin to assistant warden. One said because the other person isn't direct family, they don't count as important enough to grant me an extra phone call. They took three days to consider my request before denying it. Another accused me of lying to manipulate them into giving me extra phone minutes because I'd "wasted" what I was given and they thought we all got way too many minutes anyway.
A few other prisoners offered to let me use their phone accounts to make calls, but if I had done that and been detected by prison staff who randomly monitored phone calls, I risked a disciplinary proceeding that could result in going to solitary confinement instead of going home, and throwing my release arrangements into disarray.
My friend died the day before I went home. I still don't know what they wanted to tell me.
- gambiting 3y agoMan, that's fucking insane. Really sorry about your friend.
- sixothree 3y agoI had a friend in jail for a short period of time. I couldn’t let her languish. So I did those $25 hamburgers and $13 phone calls. Everything about this was repulsive to me. But for someone so gentle I couldn’t not do these things. Recidivism is the goal and not something we try to avoid. So sick of the way this country treats people.
- jrockway 3y ago.
- JshWright 3y agoThe only thing you use your cell phone for is making a single phone call? Literally nothing else? Also, where are you spending more than $25 for a hamburger? I'm sure you can find some high end restaurants charing that, but even in places like airports, you're not spending that much.
- lurquer 3y ago[flagged]
- BHSPitMonkey 3y agoNot all inmates are criminals, and not all criminals harmed someone.
- JshWright 3y agoIf you genuinely believe it's a good deal, feel free put your money where your mouth is.
- klyrs 3y ago> It irritates me that the same people who step over a homeless bum on their way to Starbucks whine about the poor criminals. Funny, that. Due to attitudes like yours, it's very hard for people with a criminal record to find gainful legal employment. Many end up living on the street as a direct result.
- sva_ 3y agoI want to say that I am sorry for what you went through. If that had happened to me, it probably would have radicalized me.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoYou can still let it. Help us end prison.
- networkchad 3y ago[dead]
- fourseventy 3y ago[flagged]
- williamdclt 3y agoI don’t think that’s the most charitable interpretation of the parent’s comment
- Dylan16807 3y agoIt's certainly a harsh response, but I legitimately don't know what "end prison" is supposed to mean. Even if you use lighter measures for most crimes, focus on rehab, and get rid of cells, prison's still prison. How are you going to lock up nobody?
- lexlash 3y agoHarsh? It’s a useless, knee jerk, response designed to excuse people from thinking about alternatives. Other countries seem to manage with a vanishingly smaller percentage of prisoners and without the dehumanization the US routinely employs. So yes, maybe try ending it; it’s not clear the other extreme is any worse and it’s certainly cheaper. One of those “just build permanent houses” moments.
- qingcharles 3y agoUgh. I had the same. I was held in pretrial detention for 10 years because I couldn't afford the small amount of bond money. My mother was dying while I was in there and I am in the USA, she was in the UK. The rates at one point were $1.50/min. I would try to call her for 5 minutes per day, that was the absolute most I could afford. It is heartbreaking to have someone dying at the other end of the phone line and you have to hang up on them. I scheduled a bond hearing with the hope the judge would lower my bond so I could be released and be able to call her, but sadly she died two days before the bond hearing. The State found out, so as soon as we went into the hearing the prosecutor said "Judge, I don't even know why we are here, his mother is dead already. This issue is moot." We even tried to get the jail to let me make a video call to my mother (that was her dying wish), and the British government intervened to try and persuade them, but they refused, even though they had all the equipment and let you make video calls to your kids if you played chess with them. Incarceration, for the most part, is just fucking stupidity. As Piper Kerman's lawyer tells her, "Jail is chickenshit rules enforced by chickenshit people."
- HWR_14 3y agoAt least there seems to be a lot of movement against pretrial detention because of financial reasons like bond. Of course, your passport would be confiscated so you still wouldn't be able to visit her, but at leas you could have spent hours on the phone with her.
- qingcharles 3y agoExactly. The State already had my passport as I had to give that up to even get a bond hearing. (Although the British government said they would issue me an emergency passport if I wanted to flee)
- HWR_14 3y agoI'm amazed they offered you an emergency passport, although I'm guessing this was during your lengthy pre trial detainment. I would have expected it to go the other way. Like an offer to be transferred to/from the UK in custody so you can be visited by your mother, because the US government trusts the UK government to return you.
- Modified3019 3y agoPlease make sure to repeatedly bother your legislators about this kind of thing, and preferably bring others into doing so as well. Otherwise this story will just repeat forever.
- fourseventy 3y ago[flagged]
- jonhermansen 3y agoThe justice system has many flaws including incompetence and corruption, they don't always get it right. Assuming the parent poster's guilt is fair, but god help you if the system ever gets turned against you. "show me the man and I'll show you the crime"
- cowthulhu 3y agoIt’s the way we treat those we like the least (and are vulnerable) that defines our character, IMHO.
- teekert 3y agoMaybe read Humankind by Rutger Bregman? There are either ways than the super harsh, sometimes commercial US prison system. There are also “crimes” that really shouldn’t be crimes.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- throwaway6734 3y agowhat were you in prison for?