The Big Business of Prisoner Care Packages
themarshallproject.org
themarshallproject.org
Combine the ambivalence that people will feel about most offenders with legitimate security requirements (especially those designed to defeat opioid smuggling) with security BS with business profiteering, and you've got a toxic mix that, usually, whittles away the outside support and community connections most prisoners have.
We're a relatively wealthy group, with lots of retired people, and so there are people who can take the time to know the correspondence and book sending requirements, others who can make the 3 hour (each way) trip to visit with the prisoner once a month, others who can take phone calls. We reduced the cost of the calls for the calls from $25/fifteen minute call to "only" $3.50 through some Twilio VOIP call forwarding.
And I know all about Jpay. $0.40 for each email message (slightly less with the volume discount), plus the same again for each attachment (and at this point, only 40 cents for email seems cheap). The 10% fee for cash for the commissary (plus the prison takes a cut for the inmate's savings account).
We struggle to do what we need to do for our prisoner, and I can't bear to think about all the prisoners who are depending on just a few family members and friends who themselves are struggling to get by.
If you're just doing it for yourself, and you're not already using Google Voice (GV) or have a Google user id to spare, you can get the 999 local number through GV, and then have it forward to your landline/cell. That's a little cheaper than Twilio.
For Twilio, I use a "Twimlbin" for each number, see below. An added benefit is that the callee (the outside person taking the call) always sees the same caller id, and so can put that in their address book with a suitable label.
Connectnetwork also has a protocol (a little more complex and finicky than unattended collect calls) which require the callee to press the right keys to accept the calls (or to reject them). I sometimes get that wrong (one out of three times) and sometime the system seems finicky (I thought I did it right, but it still treats me as if I rejected the call). So our prisoner knows to call a few times.
If this is still complex, hit me up on email (in profile) or comment here. I'd be happy to help.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Response>
<Dial timeout="20" callerId="1999#######">
<Number>+1444#######</Number>
</Dial>
</Response>One thing I do is send prisoners things they can trade instead of Jpay account load fees, for example in a women's prison any magazine subscription that includes a lot of perfume samples they are worth their weight in gold inside the walls for trading. Good math books as well, such as Sheldon Axler's Pre-Calc book because it includes fully worked out answers instead of just magic answers, but unfortunately I can only find hardcover and some prisons still don't allow hardcover. You also have to use certain book companies, like Books A Million since they include invoices and you can be sure they are new books instead of Amazon where I've been screwed many times sending to inmates where even if it says 'fulfilled by Amazon' it ends up being a 3rd party vendor.
Best things you can have in jail is a radio to pick up local stations, something to trade with such as coffee, and letters from the outside on mail call because everybody waits for mail call. They have Jpay mp3 players now in some states which are of course ridiculously expensive.
If you know somebody in jail doing hard time, a good idea is learn something with them. Send them math books, do the books with them and trade letters. It's motivation because often I'd lapse behind and find out the friend I was writing had already slayed the next chapter and I didn't even start. My next Saturday morning was spent catching up. Math education has a half life of hundreds of years, perfect for prisoners.
I found vet books on animal care a great idea for prisoners who need a job upon release. Lot's of kennel companies will hire ex cons to start at the bottom cleaning kennels and administering meds, and they can take vet tech exams from there to move up. I sent Saunder's guides since most vet tech exams use these. Another good book is Kernighan's book 'D is for Digital' (renamed in recent editions), it's an excellent book to teach inmates how technology works when they've been in for a long time.
Combined with the now ubiquitous cheap online background checks, one felony is enough to ruin your life forever. You end up being dependant on family members for life. The justice system in the US is built around some Puritan idea of punishment, with no notion of rehabilitation.
Source: Am one of those family members supporting a felon.
Media attention might make a bigger impact. I'm not sure the general public knows how bad the system is. Even if you're a "punishment" fan, the system is cranking out people that are more likely to commit further crime, since they have little chance to support themselves in a legal way.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#In...
In contrast, Arizona prison system has outside employment contractors where inmates can earn min wage, and when they are released X years later they often have savings in the tens of thousands to support them with a soft landing so they can go to school, or just get an apartment.
I look forward tot he day when a lot of these predators are forced to swap places with the people they were abusing.
Ugh. Haven't encountered this yet. That's truly shitty.
This is by far the worst part. Almost all felonies are economic death sentences these days. There is no turning over a new leaf and getting a fresh start.
Now, every employer can check, so there is no escape. Getting a job is very difficult. There are a few companies that hire felons, but generally into menial roles with no growth potential.
This is one place I would love to see Amazon undercut the competition and give real value to the people who need it most.
It can't be done. The way to win the contract is to offer the biggest kickback to the prison. One cannot pay such a big kickback without gouging prisoners and their families.
1. These prisoners are in prison for a reason, and
2. The severe, of then horribly violent, result of contraband in prisons.
This isn’t an article about care packages to nursing homes.
I await your immediate downvotes.
Justice: What should a society permit itself in punishing prisoners (and let's stipulate that the ones we're talking about are guilty as charged, even though many many many are not.)
Is it ok to malnourish them? Is it ok to punish their families and friends, who haven't been convicted of crimes? Is it ok to deprive prisoners of outside contact? In other words, where to you draw the line? (And if you don't draw the line, Abu Ghraib is the next stop.)
Pragmatism: As others have noted, if you're going to admit a prisoner back into society in, say, five years, does it make sense to reduce their coping and job skills in prison so that they will likely do worse when they get out? And again, where do you draw the line?
Regarding contraband: it's even worse than you hint at, today. Prisons are taking all sorts of measures to keep opioids from getting in. You can soak a greeting card or letter paper in water soluble drugs which can then be extracted once the document is inside. So my friend now only get printed out scans of letters and cards, not the cards themselves.
So, yeah, security is an issue, too, but I don't think that justifies $25/fifteen minute phone calls, do you?
As their future neighbors, employers, coworkers, customers, seems like it's in our best interest for them to be somewhat ready for that transition. As taxpayers, it's in our best interest to keep the recidivism rate low, as prison is expensive. As humans, we should want our fellow humans treated with some basic standard of respect, even if they are someone we're scared of.
This breaks the HN guidelines. Doing that leads to HN prison. Please don't do that.
The sentence was to be locked up. Not to be ripped off.