#State St.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Prison-tech company bribed jails to ban in-person visits

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in BOSTON with Randall "XKCD" Munroe (Apr 11), then PROVIDENCE (Apr 12), and beyond!

Beware of geeks bearing gifts. When prison-tech companies started offering "free" tablets to America's vast army of prisoners, it set off alarm-bells for prison reform advocates – but not for the law-enforcement agencies that manage the great American carceral enterprise.

The pitch from these prison-tech companies was that they could cut the costs of locking people up while making jails and prisons safer. Hell, they'd even make life better for prisoners. And they'd do it for free!

These prison tablets would give every prisoner their own phone and their own video-conferencing terminal. They'd supply email, of course, and all the world's books, music, movies and games. Prisoners could maintain connections with the outside world, from family to continuing education. Sounds too good to be true, huh?

Here's the catch: all of these services are blisteringly expensive. Prisoners are accustomed to being gouged on phone calls – for years, prisons have done deals with private telcos that charge a fortune for prisoners' calls and split the take with prison administrators – but even by those standards, the calls you make on a tablet are still a ripoff.

Sure, there are some prisoners for whom money is no object – wealthy people who screwed up so bad they can't get bail and are stewing in a county lockup, along with the odd rich murderer or scammer serving a long bid. But most prisoners are poor. They start poor – the cops are more likely to arrest poor people than rich people, even for the same crime, and the poorer you are, the more likely you are to get convicted or be suckered into a plea bargain with a long sentence. State legislatures are easy to whip up into a froth about minimum sentences for shoplifters who steal $7 deodorant sticks, but they are wildly indifferent to the store owner's rampant wage-theft. Wage theft is by far the most costly form of property crime in America and it is almost entirely ignored:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/15/wage-theft-us-workers-employees

So America's prisons are heaving with its poorest citizens, and they're certainly not getting any richer while they're inside. While many prisoners hold jobs – prisoners produce $2b/year in goods and $9b/year in services – the average prison wage is $0.52/hour:

https://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2024/0324bowman.html

(In six states, prisoners get nothing; North Carolina law bans paying prisoners more than $1/day, the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution explicitly permits slavery – forced labor without pay – for prisoners.)

Likewise, prisoners' families are poor. They start poor – being poor is a strong correlate of being an American prisoner – and then one of their breadwinners is put behind bars, taking their income with them. The family savings go to paying a lawyer.

Prison-tech is a bet that these poor people, locked up and paid $1/day or less; or their families, deprived of an earner and in debt to a lawyer; will somehow come up with cash to pay $13 for a 20-minute phone call, $3 for an MP3, or double the Kindle price for an ebook.

How do you convince a prisoner earning $0.52/hour to spend $13 on a phone-call?

Well, for Securus and Viapath (AKA Global Tellink) – a pair of private equity backed prison monopolists who have swallowed nearly all their competitors – the answer was simple: they bribed prison officials to get rid of the prison phones.

Not just the phones, either: a pair of Michigan suits brought by the Civil Rights Corps accuse sheriffs and the state Department of Corrections of ending in-person visits in exchange for kickbacks from the money that prisoners' families would pay once the only way to reach their loved ones was over the "free" tablets:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/jails-banned-family-visits-to-make-more-money-on-video-calls-lawsuits-claim/

These two cases are just the tip of the iceberg; Civil Rights Corps says there are hundreds of jails and prisons where Securus and Viapath have struck similar corrupt bargains:

https://civilrightscorps.org/case/port-huron-michigan-right2hug/

And it's not just visits and calls. Prison-tech companies have convinced jails and prisons to eliminate mail and parcels. Letters to prisoners are scanned and delivered their tablets, at a price. Prisoners – and their loved ones – have to buy virtual "postage stamps" and pay one stamp per "page" of email. Scanned letters (say, hand-drawn birthday cards from your kids) cost several stamps:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

Prisons and jails have also been convinced to eliminate their libraries and continuing education programs, and to get rid of TVs and recreational equipment. That way, prisoners will pay vastly inflated prices for streaming videos and DRM-locked music.

The icing on the cake? If the prison changes providers, all that data is wiped out – a prisoner serving decades of time will lose their music library, their kids' letters, the books they love. They can get some of that back – by working for $1/day – but the personal stuff? It's just gone.

Readers of my novels know all this. A prison-tech scam just like the one described in the Civil Rights Corps suits is at the center of my latest novel The Bezzle:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Prison-tech has haunted me for years. At first, it was just the normal horror anyone with a shred of empathy would feel for prisoners and their families, captive customers for sadistic "businesses" that have figured out how to get the poorest, most desperate people in the country to make them billions. In the novel, I call prison-tech "a machine":

a million-­armed robot whose every limb was tipped with a needle that sank itself into a different place on prisoners and their families and drew out a few more cc’s of blood.

But over time, that furious empathy gave way to dread. Prisoners are at the bottom of the shitty technology adoption curve. They endure the technological torments that haven't yet been sanded down on their bodies, normalized enough to impose them on people with a little more privilege and agency. I'm a long way up the curve from prisoners, but while the shitty technology curve may grind slow, it grinds fine:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

The future isn't here, it's just not evenly distributed. Prisoners are the ultimate early adopters of the technology that the richest, most powerful, most sadistic people in the country's corporate board-rooms would like to force us all to use.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

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#pluralistic #prison #prison-tech #marty hench #the bezzle #securus #captive audiences #St Clair County #human rights #prisoners rights #viapath #gtl #global tellink #Genesee County #michigan #guillotine watch #carceral state #corruption

[moontrader-arts]

Andrew prepare for St. Valentine dinner (of course he hates his boyfriend)

Talk with me about your headcanons for andreil’s interior design

#all for the game #andreil #andrew minyard #kevin day #neil josten #digital art #exy is sexy #fic rec #fun art #art #st valentine #aftg #aftg neil #palmetto state foxes #valentines day #artists on tumblr #my art #king fluffkins #sir fat cat mccatterson

[defleftist]

The only appropriate way to spend St. Patrick’s Day is to continue to stand up against the occupation and oppression of all people around the world. 🇵🇸🇮🇪

#free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #ireland #irish famine #Irish genocide #palestine #palestinian genocide #free gaza #gaza #gaza genocide #anti colonialism #anti colonization #genocide #st patricks day #leftist #leftblr #communist #socialist #communism #socialism #anti capitalist #anti capitalism #leftist politics #human rights #oppression #end occupation #israel is a terrorist state #israeli apartheid

[thali-lemmonpie]

On my world the nights are very long...

#my art #HAPPY SPIRK DAY #star trek #s'chn t'gai spock #spirk #space husbands #james t. kirk #st #k/s #tos #the premise #oms #old married spirk #t'hy'la #I'm in such melancholic state bcs of these dummies

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Random Bucky-related Fact I Uncovered:

The house on the left corner there is 169 Clinton Street (circa 1935), Brooklyn, where H. P. Lovecraft stayed 1924-1926. The area’s multiculturalism horrified him so much he had to write The Horror at Red Hook (1927) about it.

Why's this interesting?

Because if you look at this prop dog tag for Bucky in the MCU...

...You'll see that that next-of-kin address ^ for Bucky 

Is two houses down, behind HP Lovecraft's place, on the street you're looking down at the far-left of that image up there. ^

So the area HP Lovecraft found horrifyingly multicultural in the late 1920s, that's where Steve and Bucky were growing up! 😊

#bucky barnes #bucky meta #historically accurate stucky tag #meta #mcu #mcu meta #h.p. lovecraft #hp lovecraft #160 State St #169 Clinton St #bucky finding out hp lovecraft is famous: WAIT you mean that creepy guy from round the corner?! #conclusion: steve and bucky would NOT care for lovecraft 😬 #stucky #steve meta #stucky meta #steve rogers #*me being annoying bringing this up every time HP Lovecraft is mentioned* 😩 #timeline #my meta

[livesunique]

Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovnas State Bedchamber,

Pavlovsk Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia

#art #design #architecture #history #luxury lifestyle #style #luxury house #interior design #luxury home #interiors #palace #bedroom #bedchamber #st petersburg #russia #charles cameron #maria feodorovnas #state bedchamber #pavlovsk palace

[featherymainffins]

I hate to say it but I might have to admit that Redditors can be pretty based sometimes

#dead by daylight #dbd #dbd unknown #dbd the unknown #pls pls pls you can trust me to be normal about that i am completely normal about that i am so normal about these themes #and their direct opposite i am normal and can be trusted with anything that's either like Th//e La//st Uni//corn or its direct opposite #like no. no i have to remember that bhvr have no idea what they're doing. i must not get sucked in. i must remember better games... unless #like no you have no idea what id give for this to be intended like aaaaugh i am unimaginably insane about the inhuman desperately #trying to be human in any way it can and the world continually rejecting those efforts #just like i am incredibly abnormal about humanity as a horror for the inhuman and the active rejection of humanity by something #that is; despite its best efforts and thw verdict of its biology; human. haha humanity as a horror you are forced to be and #perhaps always were but never had the chance to realise it. anyway. i digressed. #also the actual reason why Oh Gross (aka The Unknown) looks like that is because the lore states that some people thought #it was just a typical serial killer and gross is just a cumulation of everything everyone has ever thought about it #(god thats depressing) #so yeah. sorry no themes of humanity here i think. though id kill for them.

[confusedbyinterface]

#Statesota #ST #What do you most associate with state #state poll #poll #Moral Orel #unreality

[very-feral-lesbian]

can we all say a collective thank you to joseph quinn for making eddie the most loveable fruity metalhead.

and can we also get a collective fuck you to the duffer brothers for mistreating his character.

#joseph stating multiple times that he was just staring at keery while filming w him #i love him fr #stranger things #stranger things spoilers #st spoilers #stranger things series #st4 #st4 volume 2 #joseph quinn #thank you joseph quinn #duffer brothers #eddie munson #queer eddie munson #steddie #fuck u duffer bros

[reineydraws]

surfer boy pizza was billy's first job and argyle was one of his bffs growing up and u cant change my mind about this

#stranger things #stranger things fanart #argyle stranger things #billy hargrove #st argyle #argyle st4 #billy hargrove lives #they surfed together on their off-time!!! truly surfer boys that deliver pizza #still cant believe they did nothing with the fact that the byers moved to cali and that's where the hargrove-mayfields came from #there are so many other states yall like... why.......... #listen i lnow cali is a big state etc etc but there shouldve been narrative significance if u were gonna do that #argyle #cali bros #argilly

[la-pheacienne]

What do you think is what causes this absolutely unhinged Targ hate? Like, I totally get if the Targs aren’t someone’s cup of tea, they can be a lot, but the way Targ haters talk about the Targs is just scary. I had this unhinged Targ anti reply to my comment on Reddit with an absolutely unhinged essay on why the Targs aren’t magical at all and that it’s just “supremacist propaganda.” It’s just really weird.

Idc if someone just doesn’t like the Targs, but what bothers me is when they act like they invented feudalism, are the most evil family ever, and when they demonize them for their dragons. Targ antis act as if the Targs are the only problem in Westeros and that getting rid of them is the solution. They must have watched GoT and read asoiaf with their eyes closed, because the war of the five kings was a war that was started just fine without help from the Targs.

The Targs did not create feudalism or war. It’s just strange how Targ antis fixate on the Targs and only blame them for feudalism as if feudalism wasn’t the system Westeros had for thousands of years before the Targs appeared. Sorry for the rant, I’ve just seen some really dumb comments on Reddit about the Targs and wanted to say this.

Unbiased answer: hate is stupid in general and i've seed batshit takes for every single character I like in asoiaf. It's a general phenomenon, if it makes you feel any better.

Biased answer: targs get extreme hate because they are the coolest house in the asoiaf universe and the very reason for asoiaf's popularity. they get hate because, while not everyone is familiar with the asoiaf universe, everyone and their mother knows the targaryens and recognizes asoiaf precisely because of the targaryens. they get hate because george decided to keep writing about the targaryens and they get an insane backstory where other houses get nothing. they get hate because dany is the reason game of thrones got popular and the reason hotd exists. that's why they get hate. loving the targs on SOME level is the norm and hating on the norm simply makes you seem cool and different in online spaces, which gets you clout.

Actually this is in sync with my unbiased answer because every character/house/trope that is popular and well liked will get an insane amount of very loud and stupid hate, it's just the way it goes. It is not something that only concerns the targaryens. I hope that covered you.

#the real answer for the current state of affairs is jo/nsa shippers and generally st/ansas though #house targaryen #daenerys targaryen #anonymous #asoiaf

[jvlianbashir]

just saw a job posting on linkedin for a full-time manager position that wanted a degree, 5+ years of experience, and work on the weekends. the listed salary was $25k.

literally i hope whoever posted that dies in their sleep

#in the most affluent city of my state too #die!!!! #not st #doctor's log

[pangeen]

“ Mt St Helen's “ // Ross Schram von Haupt

#Mt St Helen's #Washington State #Pacific Northwest #United States #nature #landscape #mountain #wildflowers #dead tree #lighttrails #aesthetics #wanderlust #explore #follow #discover

[fauvester]

thanks to mels for pointing out that star trek disco has now established that cardassians are known for loving cake to such a degree that it's part of other species cultural lingo. truly love that for them. you know the first real sign that cardassia's postwar economic miracle is revving up is when the patisseries of lakat reopen

#dee s 9 #the quote being “I have missed you like a Cardassian misses cake” #which like Has it ever been... established that... the space totalitarians love a big ol slice? i mean. i love that lore. #cardassian buddy valestro cakeboss is toiling away in the bombed out shell of his kitchen. mi familia. he is making cake 4 the state #anyways i loved exquisitely rendering that cake i put my all into it #garashir #i suppose #they are sharing a sweets date in the business district postwar #JULIANS FLOPPY STRAW HAT MAKES A COMEBACK AAAAAAYYYY #i went to like 3 fine bakeries this weekend so St Honores on the brain ig

[athleticperfection1]

Our queen!

#Mississippi State University #Mississippi State Bulldogs #softball girls #college softball #athlete #female athletes #college athlete #college girl #Brylie St Clair

[quimbyflether]

#free palestine #free gaza #donate to gaza #donate to palestine #donate now #dune part two #dune part 2 #dune #gofundme #go fund them #israel is a genocidal state #palestine lives matter #free gaza 🇵🇸 #free palestine 🇵🇸 #freepalastine🇵🇸 #israel is committing war crimes #israel is an apartheid state #israel is committing genocide #israel is evil #israel is a terrorist state #genocide in gaza #tel aviv #boycott starbucks #rafah border #gaza strip #palestine 🇵🇸 #dungeon meshi #medical aid for palestinians #st patricks day #fuck starbucks