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by shagie
850 days ago
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In many cases, the government is prohibited from providing certain things to people convicted of crimes at tax payer expense. This then means that the government has to go to third parties and contract with them to provide those goods and charge the people using them. For example, an ankle monitor - the state can't provide it and give it to the person for supervision and so the third parties who make them have a captive customer base - both the state and the individual. When looking at items inside prisons, there are special requirements for them. They need to be transparent so that contraband can't be hidden in them. There are a number of other requirements for it too. It must run on batteries that can be purchased. This creases a very small market which in turn results in higher individual prices. It is a complex topic that from one side or the other can appear to be clear cut - but the boundary between those sides is incidentally complex that results in a market that has prices much beyond what would be considered to be reasonable ... but the alternative is even more expensive or restrictive. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-one-of-the-l... |
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The main complaint and cost for prisoners as I understand it is the high cost of calling family members. Where most people might not even remember pay phones, if you do at their peak it was $0.35 to make a call, versus $6-24 for 15 minutes in prison [2].
When you factor in that most prisoners, that can even find a job in prison, make around $0.10/hr and most of their friends and family members are struggling on the outside bc they are just poor or at least one of the bread winners is now making $0.10/hr, that $15/call is very expensive. And even those that run the prison systems will tell you the number one thing to keeping a prisoner calm is regular communication with their family and friends [1]. It also costs $0.35 to send an email, while the two companies that run the telecoms for the prisons in the US raked in $1.4B [3]
Sorry my rant wasn't aimed at you, just wanted to clarify the part about batteries.
[1] https://www.vera.org/news/prisons-and-jails-keep-making-it-h...
[2] https://ellabakercenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Who-P...
[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/high-cost-prison-communicati...