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How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

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Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#61

Post by news_to_me »

candiodari wrote: post #50
jjoonathan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moral hazard is thick as molasses in this situation. You are making a distinction without a difference.

Have you ever noticed how the government and the police keep attacking the poor ? There's no more to it than that. They can attack these people for personal gain. They, in this case, of course is the government. The people that make up the law, the government, the police. If you think this is bad, wait until you see what child services or mental care departments do to people, which is a much worse example of how gove…

> It only matters that some people get power over others

I agree with this part. I disagree, however, with your implicit suggestion that fewer laws will help.

The purpose of the government is to protect people, and it's obviously failing at that in the current prison system. But simply punting the problem to the "free market" won't help either - corporations are arguably even worse offenders of exploiting unfair power dynamics.

The real answer, in my opinion, is fixing the broken power structure. After all, the government gets its power from us, and it's one of the few ways people can affect positive change.

Maybe if we all voted responsibly, prisons wouldn't have the power to exploit prisoners like this.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#62

Post by paulie_a »

markbnj wrote: post #48

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-tab...

I generally wouldn't commend criminal behavior, but good for them.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#63

Post by rhizome »

bdcravens wrote: post #46
jrhurst wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If someone is the best jailer in the world would it not be reasonable to reward them?" I mean if we're gonna bring up this anology we've gotta figure out what a "best failer in the world" even means? What is the value the jailer creates? How do define a high performance jailer over just a nominal performant jailer? If there is no extra value produced by the best jailer in the world then we are over paying the best j…

There's value in reducing recidivism and escapes. More practically, jails are understaffed, and there's tremendous political value in making Joe Public feel safer.

there's tremendous political value in making Joe Public feel safer.

On this point, without looking it up, what do you estimate the overall recidivism rate to be? Just in a general conversational sense.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#64

Post by mmirate »

Sharlin wrote: post #41
mmirate wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wrong things Says who? How does anyone make that kind of value judgment?

How does anyone make any kind of value judgment?

If something's more value-able to someone than to its current owner, then there will exist a mutually agreeable price at which that someone will be able purchase that something. Beyond that...?

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#65

Post by rhizome »

pasbesoin wrote: post #38
wayanon wrote: post #9

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

IIRC, one of the things more strongly correlated with rehabilitation is contact with family, friends, a personal support system. Such contact should be fostered, not hindered. Even if you believe in "punishment" rather than "rehabilitation", as the purpose of prison (a pretty cynical attitude, that you should examine more thoroughly including its many implications and ramifications), what do you expect these people t…

Even if you believe in "punishment" rather than "rehabilitation"

You don't have to soften your point with this, rehabilitation hasn't been a component of US prison policy since the mid-70s.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#66

Post by colechristensen »

whatshisface wrote: post #21
wayanon wrote: post #9

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

Another question might be, how isn't it? In every other area of society, if someone is very good at arranging things to achieve some widely valued goal, we think it's OK for them to get rich. If someone is the best jailer in the world would it not be reasonable to reward them? Operating a prison is a lot of work. The problem is that they are being rewarded for doing the wrong things, there's no problem with rewarding…

>In every other area of society, if someone is very good at arranging things to achieve some widely valued goal, we think it's OK for them to get rich.

This isn't very true. I am OK with people getting rich providing non-essential but much liked X to those with the spare resources.

I am not OK with people getting rich by rent-seeking limited essential resources or perverse incentives.

The societal goal of imprisonment should be minimizing population and cost to society. The financial goal would be maximizing population and minimizing cost to imprison. The societal and financial goals are very much in conflict.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#67

Post by Sharlin »

mmirate wrote: post #64
Sharlin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does anyone make any kind of value judgment?

If something's more value -able to someone than to its current owner, then there will exist a mutually agreeable price at which that someone will be able purchase that something. Beyond that...?

I don’t think that’s the sort of value that’s relevant here.

Here’s a value judgment for you: rent-seeking is evil.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#68

Post by mmirate »

pasbesoin wrote: post #38
wayanon wrote: post #9

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

IIRC, one of the things more strongly correlated with rehabilitation is contact with family, friends, a personal support system. Such contact should be fostered, not hindered. Even if you believe in "punishment" rather than "rehabilitation", as the purpose of prison (a pretty cynical attitude, that you should examine more thoroughly including its many implications and ramifications), what do you expect these people t…

> what do you expect these people to do when they get out?

Two possibilities:

1. They find some legal way to sustain themselves, in which case - because society is currently biased against excons - society can easily negotiate a good bargain. (unless the excon is able to hide their past from prospective employers)

2. They do something bad again, and get caught again, and there's approximately 300-million-to-one odds that the victim of their nastiness-of-choice, isn't me. (Or more, because I don't live in downtown goddamn Chicago.)

A win-win to me, it seems.

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#69

Post by mmirate »

Sharlin wrote: post #67
mmirate wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If something's more value -able to someone than to its current owner, then there will exist a mutually agreeable price at which that someone will be able purchase that something. Beyond that...?

I don’t think that’s the sort of value that’s relevant here. Here’s a value judgment for you: rent-seeking is evil.

It's unproductive and inefficient compared to any alternative, but calling it "evil" requires that the result be a monopoly power, and the only monopolies in the scenario here are the government itself and any exclusive contracts it may grant to private entities. These are evil, I'll agree.

But in other circumstances, the more general forms of rent-seeking can be a way to re-internalize an externality (e.g. a quantum of atmosphere that a factory could pollute), and is thereby critical to preventing "tragedy-of-the-commons"-style scenarios without violence such as rationing.

Don't you want to be able to protect the environment better than the EPA's incompetence and corruption could possibly hope to?

Re: How Companies Make Millions Charging Prisoners to Send an Email

#70

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

chrisseaton wrote: post #57
swaggyBoatswain wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-i... ). These restaur…

So with all that talk of restaurants, Best Buy, ekiosks, innovation centres, airports, drones, window shopping, the actual idea is just 'let people call each other over the internet like the rest of society does'?

More or less, its not an amazing technological innovation by any means its more of an adoption of business solutions existing in the market already.
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