[mistercow]

>In a final twist, the rental fee on his ankle tracking bracelet was up, and he needed money in a hurry to avoid being sent back to jail — hence the frantic request for $500. This was getting weirder and weirder.

So let me get this straight: the government requires ankle tracking bracelets for parolees, outsources these bracelets to the private sector, and then requires the parolees themselves to pay the rental fees out of pocket. And since the parolees themselves have virtually no bargaining power, this is a privatization scenario where market forces are almost entirely absent.

Just brilliant.

[porterhaney]

Their only chance is to hope they bought a single word domain in 1995 and hope they can sell it off to pay for their ankle bracelet.

[cjensen]

The guy is going back to jail unless he gets $500. At that point they should have offered $500 for the domain name.

[nowarninglabel]

Yes, quite true, this is all before trial too, at least was the case with a friend.

[mistercow]

Well, in this case, it was after trial since he's a parolee, but still. Parole is not some special gift we give to inmates out of the kindness of our hearts; it's an institution that we have because it provides benefits to society to gradually reintegrate felons into society, and this kind of braindead policy allows private companies to parasitize that institution.