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Prison Bankers Who Profit from the Inmates

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Re: Prison Bankers Who Profit from the Inmates

#81

Post by ObviousScience »

kenjackson wrote: post #75
ObviousScience wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the police going to do about your being mugged? I find it interesting that out of three examples, you happened to list one where the police can't possibly intercede without already being there, and your calling only serves to start a pretend hunt for lost property (hint: finding your stolen laptop is not their top priority), but will serve as justification if they want to rough up some local tough later. Aga…

I don't think the poster meant to literally call after he was murdered. But rather before it happens. There was a recent story about a lady who called the police when someone kicked in her door. She hid on the roof while the criminal looked for her. The police came and got the criminal and took her off the roof. Should she have not called the police when the guy kicked in her door?

That's a robbery or home invasion, which was not the particular case I picked out. Note that I didn't complain about calling them to stop a murder, either.

The specific case I pointed out was mugging, which is when someone stops you on the street and steals from you, typically meant to include an implied threat of violence, eg, "Give me your purse or I'll fucking shoot you"

I found it interesting that out of three cases, I thought that calling the police was only the correct response to two of them, precisely because unless the police are already on their way when you get mugged, the mugging will be over before there's a chance for you to even call them.

My comment was meant specifically to point out that even when trying to list reasonable times to call the police, the person only seemed to get 2/3 being times the police would actually help the situation in any sense.

Re: Prison Bankers Who Profit from the Inmates

#82

Post by mercurial »

innguest wrote: post #9
mercurial wrote: post #3

The cynical way prisoners are exploited is reminiscent of the way prisons in the middle ages were run, except they didn't have marketers back then.

To me it is reminiscent of the way our government (and most others) works. Both involve a monopoly on banking, granted by the government, to enrich government-selected corporations, at the expense of non-bankers. No need to go back to the middle ages to find analogies. :)

I was more thinking of how prisoners used to be nickel and dimed by gaolers back in the day.

Re: Prison Bankers Who Profit from the Inmates

#83

Post by mercurial »

eltondegeneres wrote: post #66

The solution isn't making a more efficient competitor to Jpay. The solution is abolishing prisons. Angela Davis has written a good short book on this subject called "Are Prisons Obsolete?".

Well, that may be a bit of a stretch (are you really going to put seasoned killers in the street?). A first step would be ensure that inmates and their families are not treated like animals. Unfortunately, this is also a societal choice, and that's something often difficult to sensitize the citizenry to. A system like this prospers because both JPay and the authorities benefit from it, and because neither US citizens or the press, who could do something about it, care about what happens.

Re: Prison Bankers Who Profit from the Inmates

#84

Post by mercurial »

discardorama wrote: post #25

I don't understand. Why can't the state let a bank put a bloody ATM (or several) in a common area, and let the inmates use debit cards? My blood pressure was shooting up as I read that article. I don't mind people charging a fee for providing better service. But in this case, this human leech is just spreading more misery. Why must these people abuse others this way? I hope, when he is on his deathbed, this fucker su…

It's an entire system designed around extracting maximum value from the prisoners. How much do you think prisoners get paid per hour when working for Big Corp? The public and private sectors have a nice, cozy, win-win relationship, and the voters don't really give a damn about that.

Re: Prison Bankers Who Profit from the Inmates

#85

Post by kamaal »

corford wrote: post #41
felixc wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of this (quoting from the article): "To impress state corrections officials and gain their business, JPay spends heavily on industry conventions attended by agency heads with contracting authority. During a 2012 convention of the American Correctional Association, the company threw what it called an “END OF THE WORLD PARTY” at a Denver wine bar that bills itself as “about you, and your inalienable right to th…

That actually makes it easier. Build a non-profit competitor, get the press, charities & public behind it and shame the fuckers in to switching. With material like that it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Corrupt systems don't work that way. In a system which operates at this level of ease, corruption is so far deep into the system that nothing is out of it. It works more like a food chain, and every level co operates with every other level for its own survival.

Most common people have no incentive apart from the moral appeal of it unless they are directly effected by this injustice. The press is largely a privately owned business these days and rest of the system has a lot of vested interest in keeping this unjust system up and running.

Re: Prison Bankers Who Profit from the Inmates

#86

Post by rhizome »

jMyles wrote: post #4

The only question that rings to me anymore about these stories: What can I do? What code can I write? What broker can I call? What form can I sign? How can I register my civic will so as to undo this blight? For me, this is the most embarrassing thing about being a United States citizen.

In the SF Bay Area there is a company called Telmate that has been posting job listings on Reddit and Craigslist at least for the past year or two. Telmate is a prison-phone company that charges slave-wage-earning prisoners a week's pay for a 20min call.

Re: Prison Bankers Who Profit from the Inmates

#87

Post by rhizome »

corford wrote: post #41
felixc wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of this (quoting from the article): "To impress state corrections officials and gain their business, JPay spends heavily on industry conventions attended by agency heads with contracting authority. During a 2012 convention of the American Correctional Association, the company threw what it called an “END OF THE WORLD PARTY” at a Denver wine bar that bills itself as “about you, and your inalienable right to th…

That actually makes it easier. Build a non-profit competitor, get the press, charities & public behind it and shame the fuckers in to switching. With material like that it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

You can't shame people who have no shame.

Re: Prison Bankers Who Profit from the Inmates

#88

Post by rhizome »

saalweachter wrote: post #74
cgag wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They normally charge outrageous amounts for long distance calls, which is basically all their calls. Last year the FCC limited the max rate of calls to 25 cents a minute, or 3.75 for a 15 minute call. Still outrageous, but at least not as insane. They usually charge much less for local calls, and there are a lot of services that will set up a number local to the prison and forward calls to cell phones. It's easy enou…

Yeah, there's outrageous and there's extortion. Like a $0.10 / kilobyte overage charge on cell phone data plans.

Imagine not being allowed to own a cellphone.

Re: Prison Bankers Who Profit from the Inmates

#89

Post by rhizome »

res0nat0r wrote: post #51
waterlesscloud wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Write it into the contracts that they cant? The government is the entity with power here. The government regularly dictates all kinds of terms for their contracts. All the time.

If you read the article you will see that they do it most likely cheaper than the prison can do: JPay’s rapid rise stems in part from the generous deal it offers many prison systems. They pay nothing to have JPay take over handling financial transfers. And for every payment it accepts in these states — prisoners typically receive about one per month — the company sends between 50 cents and $2.50 back to the prison op…

They will still save money without the kickbacks, which should be illegal as payola.

Re: Prison Bankers Who Profit from the Inmates

#90

Post by [deleted] »

gergles wrote: post #73

They also operate the e-mail system that can be used to send e-mail to/from inmates (using a JPay tablet, of course). You have to purchase 'stamps' . For e-mails .[1] 1: http://www.jpayinc.com/email_videograms.html "One stamp corresponds to one 6000 character message (about the length of one handwritten page), or one attachment." "JPay’s correctional email service is faster than regular mail, with inmates usually rec…

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