Free prison phone calls boost family ties, rehabilitation
latimes.com
latimes.com
I was in federal prison for years. One week from release, I got an email about a friend in poor health. I had to pay by the minute to access that email account at a prison kiosk, by the way. One minute of email access cost roughly the same as what I was paid for a hour's labor at my prison job as a GED instructor.
I called my friend as soon as I could get access to a phone. I had 5 minutes left of my monthly minutes budget because I'd spent nearly all of my 200 minute monthly allowance release planning with family. As we had only a few moments on the phone, they demanded I come see them the moment I was released. They had something very important they wanted to talk about.
I spent the next few days appealing to every prison official for extra phone minutes to speak with my dying friend. Several of them had phones on their desks as we spoke, and could have just picked up the phone and given me a few minutes right then and there. They all had the authority and ability to assist, and they all refused. From case manager, church chaplin to assistant warden. One said because the other person isn't direct family, they don't count as important enough to grant me an extra phone call. They took three days to consider my request before denying it. Another accused me of lying to manipulate them into giving me extra phone minutes because I'd "wasted" what I was given and they thought we all got way too many minutes anyway.
A few other prisoners offered to let me use their phone accounts to make calls, but if I had done that and been detected by prison staff who randomly monitored phone calls, I risked a disciplinary proceeding that could result in going to solitary confinement instead of going home, and throwing my release arrangements into disarray.
My friend died the day before I went home. I still don't know what they wanted to tell me.
I scheduled a bond hearing with the hope the judge would lower my bond so I could be released and be able to call her, but sadly she died two days before the bond hearing. The State found out, so as soon as we went into the hearing the prosecutor said "Judge, I don't even know why we are here, his mother is dead already. This issue is moot."
We even tried to get the jail to let me make a video call to my mother (that was her dying wish), and the British government intervened to try and persuade them, but they refused, even though they had all the equipment and let you make video calls to your kids if you played chess with them.
Incarceration, for the most part, is just fucking stupidity. As Piper Kerman's lawyer tells her, "Jail is chickenshit rules enforced by chickenshit people."
I would have expected it to go the other way. Like an offer to be transferred to/from the UK in custody so you can be visited by your mother, because the US government trusts the UK government to return you.
Recidivism is the goal and not something we try to avoid. So sick of the way this country treats people.
People do not go to jail without deserving it. So how bad was your friend's record, Lancelot?
I called the police to get my daughter to a hospital. Long story short, I gave all the details, and am now a convicted felon. I published the whole story online if you want to dig. My story isn't special, either, and people who believe the law defines morality have been very fortunate to lead such a sheltered life.
History obviously shows differently, read a damn book, wow.
California is the most desirable place in the world to live.
Also, where are you spending more than $25 for a hamburger? I'm sure you can find some high end restaurants charing that, but even in places like airports, you're not spending that much.
One can just get 'radicalized' merely by observing what going on around, like Ted Kaczynski. Version 1.0 of humans collectively don't meet the bar of standards for a civilized society, if a civilized society did exist then it's by fluke of a confluence of factors and fleeting one at that.
The US - which is the topic of this thread - has a larger incarcerated population than anywhere else by absolutes and percentages; by a rather high number. Other countries seem to do just fine and spend a lot less in the process. So - similar to ending cash bail and various decriminalizing efforts - it’s not clear that prison abolition would actually be net negative to “public safety”.
What I'm saying is that when we change things we need to have some careful analysis and precise implementation to ensure things are actually improving for the better, and that preferably of the possible alternatives we aren't just choosing a better one, we're choosing the best one. The status quo being awful (and I agree - the US prison system seems pretty awful) does not automatically make all proposed solutions a good (or the best) idea.
We didn’t land on the current extreme via well-reasoned debate and there’s a permanent human cost to allowing it to continue. Waiting for the best solution is a luxury and it’s easy for the average commenter here - statistically not affected - to do exactly that.
> I'm not supporting the status quo.
I believe that you do not intend to, but arguments against change inherently support the current state of things, and it’s quite hard to parse out intent and effect at 4am, so apologies there.
I'm aware that opposing radical solutions is in a way conserving the existing solution - and I'm using "solution" generally, I'm not implying that they're any good. I don't want to conserve the current system (though I'm in the UK, so it's less immediately relevant), but I don't want to rashly change it if it means not considering the consequences of those changes.
I've got my own perspective here - I was attacked at school and kicked in the head. A year and a half later, I've had a lot of recovery but it's still completely changed my life.
From my perspective, it was entirely preventable if schools were more willing to expel violent individuals (they had attacked my friend just days before). It may have been deterred if our justice system was less lenient towards under-18s (I was offered "restorative justice" - "talking it through" rings a bit hollow when you've spent the last 4 months off school, barely awake). There is no scenario where talking to him would have been beneficial to me, regardless of how controlled the surroundings were.
That's why this is the one political subject that I consistently talk about when it comes up on HN: It's one where there are a lot of strong emotions both ways, and I see a lot of sentiment that ignores the real human cost of allowing (particularly violent) criminals to continue their actions. There are a lot of strong emotions about radical solutions like abolishing prisons (and hampering schools ability to expell), and there are a lot of strong emotions dehumanising criminals (and treating expulsion as the solution to any problem). People are quick to recognise the harm that one of those positions causes, but rarely see that they're both harmful when done in excess.
So I also feel that it's easy for the average commenter to talk about how "conservative approaches just mean excess harm". From my perspective, overly rash, poorly-thought-out and poorly-implemented approaches also cause excess harm. I'd much prefer this tug-of-war about moving the overton window through extreme policies was put aside so that we can talk about more realistic solutions. And they don't need to be invented in isolation: The world is filled with alternative systems to learn from.
Ultimately putting forward suggestions like "simply abolish prison" is just going to make people dismiss you entirely, not become sympathetic to your cause.
As for why I'm speaking from a UK perspective on a US-centric thread: We tend to import your culture due to a shared language and a lot of shared culture, so in the long run what the US thinks, says, and does is very relevant to me.
1. Guarantee safety for the imprisoned. No more fear of physical / sexual violence. The way people joke about "don't drop the soap" is maddening.
2. No forced labor, no unpaid / barely paid labor. All work must be paid at least prevailing market rates
3. Free of cost essentials - food, clothing, air conditioned shelter, no roommates
4. No price gouging - anything not considered essentials must not cost more than market rate, allow multiple third party vendors in case of disagreement
This is the bare minimum. If we can't meet these, we absolutely must abolish prisons.
Why? Someone needs to pay the cost to imprison people and it's unfair to not make the guilty party at least partially responsible for that cost
If we cannot afford it, we don't have any business running a prison.
On a more selfish note, I don't want (let's call it like it is) slave labor to dilute the value of my labor.
Otherwise this story will just repeat forever.
It also really highlights just how cruel for cruelty's sake our modern prison system is. I know there's an almost fetishistic worship of punishment in the US and many other countries with large prison populations as a method of "rehabilitation", but the data shows us that if you actually care about healing people (spoiler: the US does not), it's both not very expensive and extremely positive for society to do it right. It starts with free phone calls, work transition programs, reducing restrictions on jobs held by ex-felons, and other simple changes that cost a hell of a lot less than taking care of the broken souls our prisons churn out.
They're not even wrong. But isn't the obvious answer to make higher education accessible to everyone, instead of just those with capital?!
When people say that shit (because they do), I respond: yeah, hahah, that's a good point isn't it? :) Why doesn't everyone get free college? :)
It's not like it's not feasible.
Of the 23 countries listed [1] on this site, all of them have tuition fees which are much lower than the US. A first sight shows Latvia as highest with up to 9900 EUR per academic year. Europe has 44 sovereign states.
You are correct, it's not "all" and "Europe" in general. But the sentiment (and the main difference) vs. US is visible and my point stands: "free" education is possible.
Nobody should profit off of prison, period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...
The prisons also counted all the people in them as residents, for apportionment of votes, money, and so on.
You would have a rural county where 6,000 people, including 1,500 prison guards, actually live. And then 6,000 prisoners.
Which would count as 12,000 people in terms of congressional and state representation. But only half of them are actually allowed to vote.
This is known as prison gerrymandering, although in New York it was made illegal in 2010[0].
However, it's still legal in many other states[1].
This is egregious.
Snark aside, this is how you systematically disenfranchise minorities. See Florida.
Democracy doesn’t mean only the “deserving” get a vote. In theory.
They should be able to vote though
Racism was the historic angle-- but even if you target a black community and make felons of all the men, they would only comprise a minority of voters in a white district, and it just reduces the number of all eligible voters in an all-black district. Is this a local politics thing (school funding, etc.)?
Or is it just a way to suppress voting by as much of the Left as possible?
The Right are the ones who define all these laws. The Left are the ones who seem positioned to run afoul of them (pro-drugs, pro-abortion, pro-prostitution, etc.), then lose their ability to influence change.
Reducing the number of voters by eliminating a disfavored class from representation while retaining the political power of apportionment that counts the disebfranchised citizens was the whole point of the 3/5 compromise, and mass criminalization plus felon disenfranchisement is its direct replacement.
Also, you maybe want to consider the effect on a mixed-race district where, say, a sufficient minority of whites are sympathetic to black interests that together they would, before selective disenfrnachisement, constitute a majority.
> Is this a local politics thing (school funding, etc.)?
That, too, but its largely a federal politics thing.
Thanks-- I [think I] see where you're going but still don't get where this ends. You have a district with a minority of people who can't vote. Yet they are counted among the population.
This directly suppresses presidential votes, but what besides the House benefits from an inflated population of non-voters?
> you maybe want to consider the effect on a mixed-race district where, say, a sufficient minority of whites are sympathetic to black interests that together they would, before selective disenfrnachisement, constitute a majority.
The thought crossed my mind, but the only example I'm familiar with is Atlanta-- a few blue droplets on a red ocean, yet the state is currently represented by two Democratic senators, and the House is split. There's something weird about this but I'm not a political strategist enough to understand what's going on here. Is this where population matters-- density of the metro area outweighing the rest of the state?
Yes, Atlanta metro is about 60% of the population of the state of Georgia.
Presidential voting power (for the same reason as the House; well, really, as a direct consequence of apportionment of the House).
Making the slave labor illegal wouldn't get rid of most of the economic/political incentive for prisons.
Or that you have to buy any medications sold in commissary from there and won't be given them at medical (which costs $5 a visit when you don't make $5 a month) like aspirin at the for profit commissary that buys from jacked up 'prison commissary' distributors and has a way shorter than what you buy in the store expiration date. Keep in mind you are not allowed to share 'medication' and that having expired 'medication' in your locker can be a shot (writeup, potential loss of good time, potential to have your security points increased and shipped to a higher security(i.e. less safe) prison).
"Nobody should profit off of prison, period" is very simplistic: the electricity company makes a profit; the store selling bread, sausages, milk, potatoes, and whatnot makes a profit; the supplier selling books makes a profit; AT&T will make a profit from the phone lines regardless, just as they make a profit off phone lines to offices, etc. etc.
The problem isn't private companies: it's the prison officials. How much of that revenue goes back to the prison? A substantial amount I bet. That's why they do it; that a private company is involved isn't all that important. Yes, it's exploitive and counter-productive, but few seem to care as prisons are for evil people who deserve to be assraped on a daily basis anyway, and anything more than bread & water is a luxury.
This fully fits with the general attitude that exists in the US towards criminals. This is a country that puts 9-year olds in full leg and arm shackles for stealing bubble gum[1] (putting a kid like that in court is already dubious), and there are plenty of examples ranging from the existence of the "innocence project" to all the drug tests for employment, etc. etc. What is wrong with you people?
[1]: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/courts-shackle-...
There's discord between the discussion in this thread and discussion any time the subject of San Francisco policing comes up. They're too soft and let crime happen. They ignore shoplifters. People are just shitting in the streets. Okay, well what do you want the police to do? It seems the options are you either kill petty shoplifters and homeless people or you send them to prison. But then the same people will complain about exploding prison populations.
Am I lacking in creativity? Because there are three options I can see:
- Create a society where even unskilled, somewhat antisocial people who went through great trauma as children do well enough that they don't turn to crime, and actually treat those who are so mentally ill that they'll be long-term homeless virtually no matter what.
- Allow some amount of non-lethal crime to happen and live with it.
- Put massive amounts of people in prison.
It seems like voters have converged on the third as their preference, not because they're being brainwashed by private prisons and corrupt corrections officer unions, but because the first option is too expensive and the second option would mean they need to see human shit and broken windows when they're walking around the city. At least prisons tend to be in the middle of the desert or swamp where it's out of sight, someone else's problem.
The problem is the "they don't deserve things for free" mindset. It's even here in this thread too, I had to pay for education, why should prisoners get it? This vindictive thinking is all over HN, just a couple days ago a top comment was wondering why we allow them to "infest" cities like they're some sort of disease rather than other people. If you ran on a dog whistled "kill the homeless" platform, you'd get a lot of voter support.
There's room for a middle option between passivity and slavery/prison. Some people need to be wards of somebody, so set up an institution like the military (endless boot camp, or the mining-town setups of old) and use that for alternate sentencing. Last chance: you get training, a mandatory job, shitty housing, and limited freedom (shore leave/weekend passes). It's not ideal, so work the program as long as you need to and GTFO. Fuck it up and next time you will go to prison.
Of course they shouldn't, and they shouldn't profit off of healthcare, or higher education or a bunch of other things either.
Which one is actually going to get fixed?
None of them, because the goal is making money, and it's working really well.
Maybe, prisons buying food isn't the problem with American prisons.
Out of curiosity, how many servicemen did the US allow to get into foreign prisons?
I know at least two highly mediatized cases of US servicemen committing murder in Europe[1][2] but were instantly airlifted to the US before they could be arrested by the local police, so they couldn't be trialed and jailed in the EU and instead got to walk free back home.
If the US stepped in for them in Europe, I doubt they won't do the same in Korea.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Cavalese_cable_car_crash
Here is a 2007 article in Stars and Stripes (USDoD newspaper) about the special treatment American service-members receive in South Korean prisons: https://www.stripes.com/news/u-s-servicemembers-treated-diff...
Wait, what?!
He was meant to board a plane back to America where he would be thrown out of the military, but he evidently decided to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
I suspect the north will keep him as a bargaining chip to exchange for something later on.
I don't know the current state of them, but you can tour Seodaemun prison (operational 1908-1987; it's now a museum/memorial). They make no attempt to hide the fact that the conditions were historically even worse than you're describing-- basically concentration camps sans gas chambers. Food was watery gruel, toilets were rat-infested holes in the ground, etc.
Visit in the winter when it's 30F out for the full experience; the prisoners weren't given adequate clothing for the cold themselves so even bundled up to the teeth you can appreciate their misery.
We're happy to send people to public prisons, and they're not that many private ones.
Another side of the US, the idea that everything has to be a business, in that case, charging prisoners to make phone calls.
It's some kind of deep-rooted psychological thing. Permanent pubescent power fantasies.
Is it a plague of bad taste? A conspiracy to make everybody dumber?
Stress is a drug in this way. Affecting our emotions and how we see and think.
See: "tough on crime" winning elections everywhere, three strikes laws, mandatory minimums, and the surprisingly popular viewpoint even in relatively liberal areas that more crimes should face the death penalty. The last one is particularly eye-opening: when I point out that the death penalty costs the state more due to appeals, the response I frequently get is that the solution there is to make the death penalty easier to apply and block appeals on it. "Execute all drug dealers" and the like.
We (Americans at large) send criminals to prison for punishment, not rehab. It's why we care so little about their treatment while in prison. Why we make rape jokes about prisoners. Why we rarely get angry about prisoners dying in prisons.
And that's when they aren't sources of revenue for private companies.
Yes, I'm to angry about this state of affairs to even begin to think it can be changed.
These people want retribution, not justice. It's scary and I don't want to live with the same people in society who think it's okay to think like this.
Mostly, we send them to prison so they are out of the streets and aren't committing more crimes. Their fate doesn't matter to us beyond that; out of sight, out of mind.
Title 18 U.S. Code § 3582 - Imposition of a sentence of imprisonment
(a)Factors To Be Considered in Imposing a Term of Imprisonment.— The court, in determining whether to impose a term of imprisonment, and, if a term of imprisonment is to be imposed, in determining the length of the term, shall consider the factors set forth in section 3553(a) to the extent that they are applicable, recognizing that imprisonment is not an appropriate means of promoting correction and rehabilitation.
This doesn't suggest anything about urgency to get a hamburger, just to not expect any.
From the link:
> This year California became the second state in the nation, and the largest to date, to mandate free calls in state prisons.
It's news that directly contradicts you, not research.
I think this is a HN headline auto-edit that impairs understanding, sadly: "California’s free prison calls are repairing estranged relationships and aiding rehabilitation" - removing "California's" and changing "are repairing" to "boost" significantly changes what it means.
Another reason for this one is that departments in charge of prisons try to keep prison deaths quiet[0] and refuse to perform autopsies for months[1]
[0] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06/deaths-at-rikers-cit...
> The City reported on Thursday that the New York City Department of Correction will no longer notify the media when a person dies while incarcerated, ending a consistent process that has been in effect for two years. “That was a practice, not a policy,” Frank Dwyer, the department’s new spokesman, told the outlet.
*slaves
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-...
Here are a few of the other exceptions:
https://onlabor.org/when-is-forced-labor-consistent-with-the...
Sorry about what happened to you. Terrible.
So if making a profit is the purpose it is illegal?
I have no dog in this fight, but I don't like how this is being treated as something academically sound, rather than an article that is basically a collection of vox pops.
Prisons are already an idealistic institution, in the interest of being more humane. The alternative before was capital punishment, work camps, or slavery (including in war). That's not to say prisons are ok in their current state, or can't be improvement. I just don't think rehab was historically the primary intent.
This is one of the best researched books on the subject, IMO:
https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-History-Prison-Practice-Punish...
These largely aren’t people who were committing minor crimes like selling weed, they are people who have repeatedly proven themselves to be dangerous, violent and antisocial.
El Salvador, a country with the highest murder rate per capita in the world, passed emergency measures to enact strict antigang policies under the leadership of the young President Bukele (same guy that legalized bitcoin). Bukele was the first 3rd party candidate to win and break the 2-party duopolicy that ruled el salvador since 1970s
The antigang policies included a strict no-phone-calls while in jail policy. Other policies included jamming cell signal in jail, no visitors, and temporary holding period (without charges) was increased from 2-3 to 10-15 days. All this was allowed under emergency measures voted by congress supermajority, which enabled special police powers for 30 days. The emergency measure has been renewed 10+ times already.
Murders have gone down 92% [1]. There are entire neighborhoods that have recently opened small shops for the first time in decades (it was impossible to open any viable business due to crime).
9 out of 10 salvadoreans is happy and plans to vote to reelect Bukele in the upcoming election [2]. el Salvador congress is updating the constitution now since it does not allow re-election.
The approval rating of ~90% is the highest of the entire western hemisphere.
[1] wsj. https://archive.vn/azpDU
I’ve been to juvenile prison, loads of these teenagers were out and out proud of their being in. They would happily manipulate and game anything to their advantage, and as a result the guards are forced to be intolerant assholes for the most part. If they aren’t, they’ll be taken for suckers.
So how do you sort of the otherwise good kid who gets into a fight or thought weed wasn’t a big deal from the future career criminals of America?
I'm not dismissing this outright, but in terms of priorities, giving counseling to criminals to "distinguish" between the hardened criminals and everyone else seems ripe for abuse, and not exactly a top priority when there are things like cop unioins, crowded jail spaces, and unfunded learning/job opportunities for inmates
Exactly what is the punishment?
Is the punishment loss of liberty for a period of time?
Or is the idea that for a period of time you are subjected to whatever punishments and humiliations and dehumanization the system can hit you with?
It's just shitty.
There are people in prisons who are wholly innocent as well.
* would = do; prisoners have easy access to cellphones, etc. Very common are scam calls originating from prisons. Classic real life meme is one criminal calling one person who happened to also be in another prison.
Especially here in Chile where recent mass immigration waves have pretty much spiked violent crimes in ways that were only common in central america, so it absolutely caught the country unprepared, where petty theft is pretty much given a slap on the wrist so as to avoid prison, even with multiple reincidences.
Even then, this would be a positive development, as calls could be completely monitored from landlines I guess, rather than the smuggled phones that make it to prison through public defenders and drops all the time, so it could actually be better as a way to prompt more frequent inspection and at least here, allowing prisons to jam mobile signal, which is something that's been proposed for years but even guards have protested against, as they rely on radio for internal comms (I'm not sure about the specifics)
I don't think anybody is? Where do we find such a magical place?
https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/prison...
I hope these types of nonprofit tech companies succeed as they are not profit seeking off of the misery of other people.
who are they expecting to buy this, Montessori prisons?
It is thought that this cuts recidivism by 40% and allows people to stay in touch with family. The number is good, but it is worth considering one of the less often articulated points about the system: it punishes families, too. Take away a breadwinner, an extra pair of parental hands (however active), and put a father at a distance from their kids, and what do you get? A lonely partner who can't share domestic work. Kids with only one adult to relate to, where that adult now carries responsibilities that were previously shared.
In other words, prisons incarcerate individuals but punish families. Phones in prisons lessen the blow somewhat, and it is little surprise that even this very small line of contact keeps people in touch with people they care about, instead of leaving them adrift and vulnerable to mixing with the wrong sorts on release.
Really, they ought to be abolished. Other forms of punishment and rehabilitation exist. Restorative justice exists. It would be better that we used it.
(I'm gendering the above in the way I am because in the UK, as in many other places, ten men are in prison for every one woman, give or take)
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/in-cell-phones-for-more-p...
But there is certainly a subset of them who would not be safe to treat outside of prison. And those people should remain in prison, IMO.
But, the vast majority of those I met would be totally capable of living productive (tax-paying) lives if they had the necessary support to get their lives rebooted, employment and shelter found, etc.
They were deadly serious about this. Obviously you can lie to them about where you have been, but you have to tell them under penalty of perjury, so now you're committing a different felony which carries 5 years in prison.
They should look into getting an unlimited minutes plan
Of course allowing phone calls with family keeps connections with family secure, and of course secure connections with family reduces recidivism. This is the biggest non-discovery since a right-wing economist discovered that people who went bankrupt due to medical debt weren't all irresponsible people, and decided to go into politics as a champion of the working class, trading on that "scholarship."
When will people stop discovering the poor and the weak, and stop voting or actively lobbying against them? Prison phone calls have been a government-granted exploitation racket since forever, but somehow they're still legal. Our progressives hire an unofficial credit card lobbyist to be president, and shed crocodile tears for black people who are poorer than they were in 1995.
edit: here's my proposal. Let's not isolate prisoners from society at all. Let's allow reporters in every prison, give them facilities within the building to work, and let them talk to whoever, whenever, and report whatever. Let's take the opportunity that we have gained from nabbing an out of control person to bring them back into society, rather than push them out farther. Let them vote. Let them do remote work to pay off their victims, the state, and to support their families.
Prison should be where we put people in order to protect society, not a torture chamber.
None of this requires the use of prisons. Although in the case of offenders likely to commit more violent crimes while justice is sort for previous offenses it, appears, to be our currently best way of management.
Similar to how the aim of schooling is to create citizens who can engage productively in society; the focus of prisons should be on recreating productive citizens.
groups like https://www.ameelio.org/ have been for years trying to make a dent in this, but I think they are only in 3 states currently. I do think it really says something when communicating with those in prison is so hard that the IRS has to use a non-profit to do it.
Like some much in this world, it is a cancerous greed that consumes makes everything worse for everyone.