Jails Have Become Warehouses for the Poor, Ill and Addicted

As if being in prison isn't tough enough on families and the incarcerated, or those who sit in our jails awaiting trial for months and years, just because they are poor and can't afford bail. Jails have become warehouses for the poor, ill and addicted, and extraction of monies by the courts and judicial processes is burdensome, which in turn creates a revolving door back into jail for failure to pay fines and or restitution.

“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.”

Incarcerations Front Door: The Misuse Of Jails In America


This however isn't the only way that, IMO, the incarcerated are being subjected to unfair practices for being poor, ill or addicted. Once an inmate is in jail, the only contact he?she has outside of visitation with friends and family is by phone. Some prisoners families live so far away that relying on phone calls is the only means and contact they have but, even this has become another means by which those incarcerated and their families are being made to pay vast sums of money just to have contact with their loved ones.

Source

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?"

Tweny thousand dollars, WOW!!!

So, whose behind this scheme:

Source

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.

There it is, cash strapped states are offered lucrative contracts, and in turn receive kickbacks or site commissions in excess of $450 million dollars for the "exclusive right to extract money from a captive population."


“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”

Nelson Mandela







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a reply to: Daedal

Jails in United States are a business, there are quite a few documentaries on the subject

Even ATS had a thread on judge being paid to send people to jail and make sure they stay there

a reply to: Daedal

Writing a letter may be a cheaper option, unless letters are now against the law

a reply to: Daedal

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.

In jail, you have to call collect to call your family, they charge the families about 5.0 the first minute, and about half that every minute thereafter. Its disgusting, and sometimes writing a letter isnt an option.
Many times, the letters get 'lost', if you know what I mean.

a reply to: Daedal

The movie Snowpiercer comes to mind. If you have not seen it, it is a GREAT movie. It starts off a little slow but when it gets going and you understand it, it tells a story kind of like this in a way, about class war.

S+F

ID

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.

That would be defensible however, prison labor isn't used to help operate the prisons, well at least wages earned. With inmates making just dollars per day for eight hour shifts, perhaps if they payed them minimum wage, they could help pay for there housing ect...but that isn't the case.

Also, a lot of states gave over their prison systems to private operations, which relieved the states of heavy costs, but this also incentivized profits for prisoners, basically like stock on an exchange.

With states guaranting a certain bed quota or occupancy rate, or face penalties such as paying for an unoccupied bed, locking people up for petty things has become the norm.

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 ?

a reply to: Daedal

Step on in drastically reducing prison populations nation wide: end the Drug War.

Such a complex problem it is hard to fix without adressing multiple issues at once.

Some like to be in jail because it is better than sleeping on the streets and others do not like the outside because often work is involved.

Definitly if drugs were legal then the majority of the problem goes away.

I wonder how many robberies and murders are comitted just because of the soverity of drug laws?

When possessing a plant can be punishably similar to murder or robbery then adding on another charge does not seem like such a big deal to some.

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 ?

Little known fact, the anti slavery laws in the US specifically exclude prison labor. The intent was so the military can make PoW's work without paying them, but civilian prisons started to get in on the action.

Good thread. This is an issue that needs so much more awareness. Our ability to ignore the plight of others, and thus not work for change, is one of our biggest flaws, sins, deficiencies, shadows.