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 <i>'stamps'</i>. For <i>e-mails</i>.[1]<p>1: <a href="http://www.jpayinc.com/email_videograms.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.jpayinc.com/email_videograms.html</a><p>"One stamp corresponds to one 6000 character message (about the length of one handwritten page), or one attachment."<p>"JPay’s correctional email service is faster than regular mail, with inmates usually receiving emails within <i>48 hours</i>." (emphasis added)<p>Looking up the pricing for a random facility[2], it's $18 for 40 'stamps', each one of which is good for 1 small attachment or 'page' of text. This is fucking extortion.<p>2: <a href="http://www.jpay.com/Facility-Details/Kentucky-Adult-Institutions/Kentucky-State-Penitentiary.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.jpay.com/Facility-Details/Kentucky-Adult-Institut...</a>
The only question that rings to me anymore about these stories: What can I do?<p>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?<p>For me, this is the most embarrassing thing about being a United States citizen.
The prison phone systems are also bilking families. In the Alaska prison system, I had to call collect to my family. Phone calls were limited to 15 minutes and they cost my family $33 per call. I hated calling them because I felt so bad about that cost.
There is a lot that one could say about this, but let me throw this in the mix: a big part of the problem is simply that we (the US) have far, far too many people incarcerated and "in the system" to begin with. The US ranks second only to the Seychelles in terms of "prisoner count per 100,000 of population"[1], at 707. And many of those people are in jail for non-violent crimes, or crimes for which restitution would be a better consequence than jail.<p>We need to decriminalise drug possession and sales, and focus on restitution for cases of theft, fraud, etc. The people in jail should be mostly murderers, rapists, and people who have shown themselves to be an active threat to society. And even then I'm not actually convinced that jail is the best solution, but let's tackle one problem at a time.<p>(Sidebar: a different Wikipedia page says the US incarceration rate is actually the highest, not second. See: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...</a>)<p>[1]: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcerat...</a>
So they bribe and kick-back their way through the year and then throw a big party (ahh 'convention') in Vegas where they give each other awards while sucking down premium liquor, hand-rolled cigars, and no doubt metric tons of the stuff half of their inmates are in prison for.<p>The pigs from 1984 would blush over this stuff.
This is a state-granted monopoly and it's being abused. The services JPay offers should either be government run or open to free market competition.
For the record, it's this exact injustice that kicked off Bayes Impact. Pyduan and I sat at dinner talking about my past life in private equity where I spent a lot of time looking at private prison companies, including JPay. There are huge barriers of entry into these markets, particularly in having close relationships with the decision makers: commissioners of the Department of Corrections.<p>The answer we came up with was a nonprofit that could develop strong relationships with civic institutions and be free from conflicts of interest and profit motives. This is a very poorly incentivized market, and startups will have a tough time disrupting the existing players because such perverse incentives exist. If anyone is interested in learning more, feel free to shoot me a message, and I'm happy to chat.<p>FYI, JPay is moving into all modes of communications and media, including email, video chats, music, etc. For families looking to keep in touch with their loved ones in jail, they are essentially the Apple in jails.
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.
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?<p>My blood pressure was shooting up as I read that article. I don't mind people charging a fee for providing <i>better</i> 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 suffers the most unimaginable amount of pain for a long time.
Another shameful story about the criminal justice system in the US.... I wish I were more shocked.<p>I'm not a sociologist and I'm not going to look for links, but I'm pretty sure there is a strong correlation between poverty and crime. Now certainly correlation doesn't mean causation... but is keeping people in poverty more likely to cause or to prevent crime? But this question might make the bad assumption that the intent of the criminal justice system is to prevent crime in the first place.<p>We all pay for crime. Something to keep in mind. Social justice is more than just feeling good and being fair. It's about practicality also.
This looks like a nice gig to have too, running an app-store for a (literally) captive market of over a million people:
<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-14/the-apple-of-the-u-dot-s-dot-prison-system" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-14/the-apple-of...</a>
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?".
making profit out of prisons, in all shape and forms, is a such unbelievable conflict of interests. It is the ultimate monopoly - monopoly of force and violence - that is being abused by existence of any revenue stream associated with prison system.
<i>"He says he charges only as much as he must to maintain a razor-thin profit margin."</i><p>I have a hard time believing this. Does any one have experience in this space? The way I understand it, it really shouldn't cost $6+ for an electronic transaction.
Two stories next to each other on the home page with someone called Ryan Shapiro in them, in both cases he is 37. One where he is an foia activist [1], and this one where he runs a company profiting from prisoner's families. Are they the same people or is this just a strange coincidence?<p>[1]<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8390642" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8390642</a>
There is a good lesson in this article that is getting lost in the debate. The lesson is <i>don't go around committing armed robberies.</i> You are screwing your family. More specifically, you are punishing your mother.
Amateurs. We're all prisoners to ZIRP, QE, 'collectible' taxes on gold, and central banking which is all legalized counterfeiting for the .01%