Jails banned visits in “quid pro quo” with prison phone companies, lawsuits say
arstechnica.com
Civil rights group sues two counties, says hundreds more have banned visits.

Across the United States, hundreds of jails have eliminated in-person family visits over the last decade. Why has this happened? The answer highlights a profound flaw in how decisions too often get made in our legal system: for-profit jail telecom companies realized that they could earn more profit from phone and video calls if jails eliminated free in-person visits for families. So the companies offered sheriffs and county jails across the country a deal: if you eliminate family visits, we’ll give you a cut of the increased profits from the larger number of calls. This led to a wave across the country, as local jails sought to supplement their budgets with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from some of the poorest families in our society.

  • vortic@lemmy.world
    1001·
    3 months ago

    Prisoners shouldn’t need to pay to talk with their families. We claim that our system is intended for rehabilitation. What could possibly lead to better outcomes than the ability to keep in touch with your family; to be made to feel human while serving your sentence? The US justice system is a fucking joke and for-profit prison shareholders are the only ones laughing.

    Incarceration should have no profit motive, regardless of whether that profit motive benefits a for-profit company and its shareholders or the local Sheriff’s department.

    • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
      542·
      3 months ago

      We claim that our system is intended for rehabilitation.

      News to me, I did not know you guys claimed that.

      • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
        28·
        3 months ago

        The 13th amendment claims otherwise, in fact.

        Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

      • vortic@lemmy.world
        131·
        3 months ago

        It’s what our politicians claim the system is for. It’s obviously not, but that’s the claim.

        • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
          14·
          3 months ago

          From an outsider view I did not even know that your politicians claimed that, I thought it was just a few more hopeful ones saying it should be that. I always assumed it was common knowledge that the system in the US was for punishment and whatnot first. Might just be me seeing the movie “Tank!” as a child.

        • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
          4·
          3 months ago

          Yeah, the US has way to many “bad people” per capita for that to have ever made any sense.