West Virginia Inmates Will Be Charged by the Minute to Read E-Books on Tablets | Hacker News Reader

West Virginia Inmates Will Be Charged by the Minute to Read E-Books on Tablets

reason.com

66 pointsDoreenMichele26 comments

The US truly has not spent enough effort growing out of its slave economy that has defined so much of its existence.

> In a statement to Reason, a WVDCR spokesperson noted that no inmates are being forced to use the tablets.

Yeah but they are locking them in a room for extended periods with nothing else to do. They are only not being forced to do it by a technicality.

I don’t think that providing these things is problematic in itself (though the crony capitalism is worrying). The problem is that many prisons no longer allow book donations or free access to book. In my opinion, categorically, providing more chance cannot be wrong. The problem is when choice is removed (in this case, reading paper books).

The problem is that the state isn’t willing to invest money in making prisons better. This stems from the unclear nature of what prisons are for: a debt paid to society, justice, rehabilitation, or maybe to prevent further crimes? If your answer is justice or debt, then you can make good arguments why prisons shouldn’t be nice. If you think they’re for rehabilitation or prevention of crime, then tablets, TVs, etc are probably a good idea.

Since we don’t all agree on the moral justification for inprisonment, the state just provides the most basic services. This means that only companies are going to provide these services, which are arguably predatory.

Prison is a hard thing to get right, no matter what you do some people are going to get upset. Regardless, I think most of us can agree that these contracts handed out by states to these companies are problematic and stink of cronyism. Probably the only reason these contracts got signed was that the prisons were netting a percentage of the sales, allowing them to increase salaries and stuff: in essence, an indirect bribe for state employees. In return, the state probably agreed to ban books.

Unless they have alternative access to paper books, I don’t see how this does not violate their 1A right to books.

Prisoners have the right against cruel and unusual punishment. They certainly aren’t protected by the 4th amendment. Do they have 1st amendment rights?

Cruel and unusual is a thing that gets interpreted and re interpreted. The 1A is pretty unambiguous. I believe they enjoy a subset of 1A rights, though not all as felons lose some rights.

> I don’t see how this does not violate their 1A right to books

There’s a First Amendment right to books in prison? (Genuine question.)

Yyyyy-es?

I mean they have the right to read books and other materials[1, 2] (whether the prison is required to furnish them is a different question). But generally, I believe yes, prisoners have a limited right to the 1A in prison. There are some restrictions for security purposes as well as they lose some rights (like right to vote) if they are felons.

[1]https://ncac.org/news/books-behind-bars-the-right-to-read-in...

[2]https://jailhouselaw.org/your-first-amendment-right-to-freed...

Meanwhile in Canada, you can still vote while you’re in prison.

Pretty sure the bill of rights doesn’t apply to prisoners.

Pretty sure that you're wrong about that.

I suppose it depends on how you interpret the 2nd and 4th, but prisoners certainly can’t bear arms or refuse arbitrary searches. Similarly they lack the right to freely assemble.

> provided by private contractors like GTL and JPay.

How convenient the parasites involved can present themselves with discreet pseudonyms such as GTL, instead of using their legal names and addresses.

Then let us fill up the internet with their legal names and addresses.

They do this at the Polk County Iowa jail.

These are private prisons right? They just exist to make money anyway so this isn't surprising.

Doesn't look like it. The article mentions that it's a deal with the department of corrections, and that WVDCR is getting commissions from the program.

It's deals with private interests that charge these fees, whether the prison is private or not. It's still slimy.

In my view, prisoners should have access to (more or less) all the books they want, all the movies they want, all the games they want, and all the video calls home they want, all delivered to the comfort of their own private cell. Balancing this, prisoners should have no interaction with other prisoners — your human interaction comes through the video chat or through your appointments with guards, prison therapists, and so forth.

Basically, imagine a dull weekend spent entirely inside your hotel room; now imagine it lasts a lot longer. The room is big enough to exercise in, it has natural light, maybe a caged balcony to get fresh air — it’s just like a hotel except everything is bolted down and you’re not allowed to leave.

Preventing interaction between prisoners solves most prison problems, and also enables the number of guards to be massively reduced, compensating for the extra cost of the larger cells and all the entertainment stuff.

While this might have the effect of symptomatically addressing visible prison problems like fights, it would only further exacerbate some of the worst soft problems like the overall inhumanity of incarceration, and its emphasis on punishment instead of rehabilitation.

If I were incarcerated, the forced interaction with other prisoners would be the biggest punishment. Include read-only internet access and I could carve out a meaningful existence in the environment described by the parent comment.

What's the humane response to an individual that continually commits serious/violent crimes?

The loss of the most basic of human rights: liberty. But your chosen goalpost is noted.

The real problem is that they are losing more than just their liberty.

Yeah just have a partnership with Skill Share and Science Journals and other companies to host only content that has been approved specifically for prisons. I can't wait to see the future wave of hermit-like self taught scientists who spent 20 years doing nothing but theoretical physics.

One problem with this position is that for some people, it'd be like throwing Brer Rabbit into the proverbial briar patch (if not the carrot patch).

If plenty of people choose to live like this voluntarily, is it still punishment?

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