Horrible.
This was exactly the specific detail that came into my head first; human contact with loved ones is how:
- an inmate can maintain the inner strength to get through incarceration;
- it proves there’s something worth getting out FOR, a loving support;
- it gives inmates a reason to change their ways (life is better on outside with loved ones than inside).
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If these were a free alternative for folks where distance is a challenge, I think they’d be great.
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You’re correct, I don’t have firsthand knowledge of the prison system. What I know I’ve learned from outside the system, and have developed a belief that for far, far too long prisoners have been used as a replacement for slave labor. Paying someone 12¢ an hour is essentially slavery; even if someone wants to factor in that room, board, and medical are provided. The same things are provided to the military (in which I did serve), and they aren’t paid that paltry amount. I’ve heard the arguments for why it’s fair to pay prisoners so little, I just don’t agree with them.
Like SO MUCH in our country, this system is broken and corrupt.
My point was, the main driving force – I feel – behind switching to fucking video calls and eliminating face-to-face visitation is the fact they can use it to make even MOAR MONEY! All of the rest of the “benefits” they list to this system is razzle dazzle bullshit. And nobody will care, because it’s being done to “bad people.”
And my point was seeing the current course to an extreme: making family and friends of the incarcerated keep them supplied with air. If they think they have a chance of getting away with that, they will do it.
Once it’s allowed to be profitable to keep people prisoners, then more and more people will be kept prisoners.
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This is especially outrageous when you remember that one of the strongest predictors of recidivism is the social ties of the returning community member. Weakening those ties is bound to lead to worse outcomes. Everyone involved in this should be fired into the sun.
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Thank you, j9c. I was hesitant to put myself out there but ultimately decided that any risk of doing so was far outweighed by the gravitas I could bring to the conversation. Hope that makes sense?
For the record, I’m not bitter or angry. I committed a crime, I paid a price for doing so. But that price was far too high, to myself, my family, and to society in general and it’s that latter group of people I would like to help understand that there are better alternatives and that the current system is just broken in every way.
A sad observation: before my incarceration, I was disillusioned with Congress, with the Executive Branch, with politics in general at almost every level, but still held onto some idealist belief that the legal system in the U.S. was functioning properly.
It isn’t. Not even a little bit.
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It is entirely about “more money”.
Someone in a different forum on a different site made the observation that pay video calls would be an excellent alternative for people who just cannot afford to travel for visits. I could go with that as long as the costs were reasonable and the video calls were one option, not the only choice.
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I get the feeling this is all incremental scope-creep of the privatization of prisons:
https://www.thenation.com/article/beware-of-big-philanthropys-new-enthusiasm-for-criminal-justice-reform/
Agreed.
Funnily enough, I was or am (up until extremely recently) on that same road you just described.
Having sought justice in the realm of environmental law (various jurisdictions) re failure to duly constituted authorities inability to enforce the Endangered Species Act, I think I have arrived at the same point:
Yup.
I don’t know what your plans are, going forward, but thank you for speaking up, and for your willingness to educate those of us who need to learn.
Makes complete sense.
And I’d be happy to shout it from the rooftops (were it to do any good) that we really really need sense-making right now.
And courage too.
Oh yeah, commissary companies are taking in loot over inmate needs. Not just good ol’ yellow-bag either, but toiletries and basic necessities that, if we’re being honest, should be provided anyway. 6 dollars for Suave deodorant. 4 dollars for a small bar of Irish Spring. I mean, yeah you get Bob Barker around here, but that stuff is basically garbage. And founded by a former congressman “just trying to help out the little people” with a billion-dollar company.
Yup, we’re living in a Boring Dystopia. All the horrible shit without all the cyberpunk aesthetic.
Well, somebody has to think of the well-being of the poor helpless stockholders! They have to eat too and apparently very well off the backs of the poor and incarcerated.
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