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“It’s an important moment to take a look at our use of jails,” said Nancy Fishman, the project director of the Vera Institute’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections and an author of the report. “It’s a huge burden on taxpayers, on our communities, and we need to decide if this is how we want to spend our resources.”
Over the years, the expense and inconvenience of the visits have often meant the family has relied on the phone to communicate with his brother. Miguel guesses his family has spent an average of about $100 a month in prison phone charges over the two decades his brother has been locked up. In an interview with Truthout, Miguel did a quick calculation of the total for these bills, "Can we just round it out and say it's $20,000?"
Securus' operations in the state of Illinois provide an excellent example of how the company uses its monopoly to leverage profitable phone contracts. Phone contracts are won by companies offering large "site commissions" or "kickbacks" to cash-strapped state and county governments. A percentage of income collected from phone calls goes back to the authorities for the exclusive right to extract money from a captive population. According to the FCC these kickbacks amounted to around $460 million in 2012.
originally posted by: Profusion
PizzaAnyday505 ,
Interesting argument for why "slave labor" in prisons may be somewhat defensible?
They should manufacture items or learn repair etc. to pay for the expense of housing them and they could learn a trade. Many prisoners have made mistakes and this would be welcomed by them as a chance to learn a trade. The others who really don't care should plant crops or something else that benefits the prison. This way a prison can to be a self contained system that pays for itself and not drain the state.
originally posted by: tom.farnhill
a reply to: Profusion
wow and i thought owning or using slaves was along time ago ,US you have come full circle , just wait for when the time when they will be rounding up all the homeless and pushing them into forced labour and paid with a straw bed and a bowl of swill . you can't have these folk thinking they are as good as you can you ?