Jails banned in-person visits in order to maximize revenue from voice and video calls as part of a "quid pro quo kickback scheme" with prison phone companies
Jails banned in-person visits in order to maximize revenue from voice and video calls as part of a "quid pro quo kickback scheme" with prison phone companies
Civil rights group sues two counties, says hundreds more have banned visits.
Across the United States, hundreds of jails have eliminated in-person family visits over the last decade. Why has this happened? The answer highlights a profound flaw in how decisions too often get made in our legal system: for-profit jail telecom companies realized that they could earn more profit from phone and video calls if jails eliminated free in-person visits for families. So the companies offered sheriffs and county jails across the country a deal: if you eliminate family visits, we'll give you a cut of the increased profits from the larger number of calls. This led to a wave across the country, as local jails sought to supplement their budgets with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from some of the poorest families in our society.
Prisoners shouldn't need to pay to talk with their families. We claim that our system is intended for rehabilitation. What could possibly lead to better outcomes than the ability to keep in touch with your family; to be made to feel human while serving your sentence? The US justice system is a fucking joke and for-profit prison shareholders are the only ones laughing.
Incarceration should have no profit motive, regardless of whether that profit motive benefits a for-profit company and its shareholders or the local Sheriff's department.
Reminder that prisons are slavery with extra steps
This country is just pure evil.
Cunts
commodifying things that can't be made in a factory is always a mistake.
This came up in a John Oliver episode about prison labour, this episode I think: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AjqaNQ018zU
Jpay.com is what I used when I went to jail.
A literal captive consumer. Capitalists wet dream come true. Just think of the returns if this model could be expanded! Disrupting the economy by disrupting your freedom.
They're not trying to build a prison for you and me, they already have.
'Murica.
Despite calls to the contrary, a for profit prison system is inherently unjust and can not help but abuse it's prisoners
Jails too.
