Prison is not only hard on inmates but their families–the long trip for family members to travel to the prison to visit, the money to make sure an inmate’s commissary is stocked, and even phone calls are expensive. So expensive, in fact, that the FCC is voting today to limit the price of prison phone calls:
For roughly 20 years, Miguel Saucedo and his family have been setting aside money to talk to Luis on the phone — money that could have gone to those necessities. Saucedo doesn’t know exactly how much his family has paid over the years. But he estimates “it would have to be” over $10,000 or $20,000. For most of us, those phone calls would cost just a few cents per minute. But for inmates and their families, phone rates and fees can be many times higher. It’s common for them to pay $13 for a 15-minute call.
The prison phone industry, of course, is poised to fight back.
Team Blackness also discussed Jim Webb dropping out of the presidential race, Joe Biden’s decision to not enter at all, and a RushCard glitch that has left thousands of people unable to get to their own money.
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Walker
I have a BIL in prison and there are SO MANY of these types of things. But calling is the worst. Not only do they charge ridiculous rates, but they mandate that you must talk on a landline. Who has a landline anymore?
We managed to get an exception to the landline rule because we are the only relatives in this country (the in laws live outside the US). But we pay dearly for this exception.
Another great scam: music. If they want to listen to music, it is cassette only (less shiv friendly than CDs. And mp3s … Hah!). Moreover it must be cassettes with plastic screws. There is exactly one company in this market and they charge monopoly rates.
benw
Prison in the US is cruel, if not unusual, punishment.
Also, I’ve got to hand it to you, EJ, you make your posts have more weird formatting glitches than I would have thought possible. Are you editing the source code by hand?
Bart
Not two but THREE posts with exactly the same content? Why don’t you check after posting whether it has all gone right and delete the superfluous ones?
Loneoak
@Bart: Amen. And why don’t any of the other FP’ers do it for him?
ETA: Well, I suppose I actually know the answer to this. It’s because none of them read their own damn blog.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Kinda-sorta along those lines, I can’t find a link, but I heard part of an NPR piece about a recent police summit where they did an interview with a Chicago police official (possibly Gerry McCarthy?) who was strongly emphasizing that we need to stop arresting people for drug possession and start arresting them for illegal gun possession, because those people are the ones killing each other in Chicago.
low-tech cyclist
That’s simply insane. It simply shouldn’t be either expensive or complicated for inmates to have phone calls to and from their friends and family on the outside.
Sure, you want to make sure the inmates don’t run their old gangs and order hit jobs over the phone, but maybe we could just have the NSA monitor the prison phone lines.