
More jails replace in-person visits with awful video chat products - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/04/more-jails-replace-in-person-visits-with-awful-video-chat-products/
======
thatswrong0
Terrible policy. In-person visitation is known [0][1] to reduce recidivism
rates. Video visitation should be included as an addition, not a replacement,
to in-person visitation.

Lots more information about the subject (costs, providers, etc.) can be found
at Prison Policy Initiative:

[https://www.prisonpolicy.org/visitation/report.html](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/visitation/report.html)

[https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/prisonvisits.html](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/prisonvisits.html)

[https://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/state_of_phone_justice.h...](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/state_of_phone_justice.html)

[0]:
[https://law.yale.edu/system/files/area/center/liman/document...](https://law.yale.edu/system/files/area/center/liman/document/prison_visitation_policies.pdf)

[1]:
[https://mn.gov/doc/assets/11-11MNPrisonVisitationStudy_tcm10...](https://mn.gov/doc/assets/11-11MNPrisonVisitationStudy_tcm1089-272781.pdf)

~~~
rwmj
The principal agent problem - higher recidivism rates cost society indirectly
over the long term, but jails make more money in the here and now.

~~~
wefarrell
Why not provide a financial incentive to reduce recidivism? Is that not
currently the case?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why not provide a financial incentive to reduce recidivism? Is that not
> currently the case?

Because then prison officials would have incentives to aid ex-prisoners in
avoiding being identified as perpetrators of later crimes.

------
saagarjha
> Of course, jails could offer video calling without shutting down in-person
> visits. But the fact that jails get a share of the proceeds from these
> services creates a perverse incentive for them to end in-person visits. As
> long as in-person visits are available, many family members will take the
> time to drive to prison and see their loved one. But if only video visits
> are available on site, more family members will opt for the convenience and
> privacy they get by calling from home.

You're not "opting for convenience and privacy" here; you're making the only
choice you have in the face of prisons looking to make a couple of dollars.

~~~
ada1981
What they mean is that once they stop in person visits you can opt for
“privacy and conscience” of calling in from home for a fee vs. using the video
terminal at the jail for free.

I had to reread this part to figure out that is what they meant.

This is a horrible additional punishment for the prisoners. Unless this
punishment is reflected in shorter sentences (which it won’t be) this must
stop.

What would a prison look like that is designed with the right incentives?

Can we give bonuses for recidivism rate declines?

~~~
scrumper
Why couldn't the arrangement be that a repeat "guest" is paid for 10 or 20%
less each time they stay? (To be strictly fair, that structure should apply to
parole officers, half-way houses, and other providers working to rehabilitate
release prisoners.)

I've given this 30s of thought so I'm more than happy to be shown to be very
wrong about this idea.

~~~
P7YMZ99N47Q0
Fun idea, another 30 seconds of thought: flip it around and just pay the
prisoner to stay out. You get $10k for every year you don't return to prison
after leaving, for some amount of time. Also might help ex-cons stay on their
feet.

Adjust figures and timing as necessary so that it's worth your while, but
doesn't incentivize gaming the system too much. This is cheaper to the state
than the prison time anyway.

~~~
jandrese
Won't work for two reasons:

1\. You now have an incentive to commit a crime and spend time in prison.
People will rightfully ask why they don't get $10k a year for not breaking the
law.

2\. It could reduce recidivism, and isn't strictly punitive. It's incompatible
with the way the US runs prisons.

~~~
P7YMZ99N47Q0
#1a is a question of figures. It would likely work better for crimes with
unnecessarily long sentences, or that are unlikely to be repeated. The goal is
to help keep people afloat while they build a new life. Worst case, some
amount of "fraud" is probably expected and just built into the cost of the
program.

#1b might be improved with proper framing. Effective politicians are good at
spinning proposals a particular way. E.g. depending on who you're presenting
the idea to, emphasize how the offer goes away if you break strict conduct
rules, or maybe you can only do it once, or you talk about it in terms of how
long it will take for the state to earn a profit, etc.

I'm not touching #2.

------
wonderwonder
There is a reason America leads the world in percentage of population in
prison. Our prison population represents ~22% of the worlds prison population.
Our corporations discovered that if you treat prisoners like a renewable
resource as opposed to a human being, you can make more money. They literally
thrive on human suffering.

They house prisoners for the least amount of money they can while charging as
much as they can. Prisoner safety means nothing with sexual assault, murders
and drug use running rampant. Removing in person visits is just another way to
wring funds from the incarcerated and now their families. They want released
prisoners to return to prison as they can continue to earn off of them.

The way we allow prisoners to be treated in this country is a black mark on
the soul of the nation.

~~~
andrewla
I think you're under the impression that the prisons mentioned here are
privately run. All three mentioned in the article, like 90% of prisons in the
US, are run by governments (in this case municipal authorities).

~~~
wonderwonder
I am not under that impression at all; private corporations profit greatly
from government prisons. Private companies administer the phone systems, bail
bonds, cafeteria / commissaries, etc. Since they profit from it they lobby
hard for harsh sentencing laws, against marijuana legalization, etc. ensuring
a steady supply of prisoners to feed the complex. They affect future prisoners
even before they have been accused of a crime, supporting the campaigns of
those they know will support tough prison sentences including judges, sheriffs
etc.

------
m-p-3
Imagine the implications if technology like realtime deepfakes becomes
possible. You could basically fake a relatives or a prisoner and act on their
behalf to extract information or cover up that something happened to them.

Terrible idea all around.

~~~
Balgair
The emoji unicorn 'masks' on the iPhone are pretty close as is. Such a thing
can't be more than 5 years away, if not already here.

------
chmod775
As if US jails weren't already reprehensible and embarrassingly bad enough.

This is not just punishing the inmate, this is punishing their extended family
and anyone who cares about them as well.

Some people just don't appear to care about being labeled "morally bankrupt".
By the time they're done, police, judges and jails will be superfluous because
society will have no values left to protect.

The latter is somewhat tongue-in-cheek of course, but this is definitely
narrowing the moral gap between jailers and inmates even further.

Absolutely embarrassing for any modern society.

~~~
computerphage
That's the thing about bankruptcy, there's no further to fall.

------
bobydonahue
This is truly disturbing. Whoever is selling these products is an ethical case
study waiting to happen. I'm sure these solutions use open source software,
perhaps it's time we wrote restrictions into licenses to prevent this tech
from being used for such evil purposes.

~~~
morpheuskafka
> perhaps it's time we wrote restrictions into licenses to prevent this tech
> from being used for such evil purposes.

Such software would no longer be open source (canonically defined by OSI) or
free (canonically defined by the FSF), and it would cause all sorts of
problems for developers as it would be incompatible with other licenses such
as the GPL. And it would be impossible to somehow enumerate all "evil
purposes" in a licenses, and if you theoretically did, virtually everyone else
would disagree with at least some part of it.

~~~
heyitsguay
I see this attitude a lot on HN, something along the lines of "the social
problems created by this new/hypothetical technology would be hard to solve,
so let's not bother trying". But as the current social media regulation fracas
shows, if technologists are unwilling to engage with broader society to
address the problems they create, solutions will be imposed upon them by
politicians who are probably less informed about which measures are or aren't
effective.

We're willing to devote a lot of time and effort to solving hard technical
problems, we should be at least as willing to use some of that energy to solve
the associated social problems as well.

~~~
User23
> We're willing to devote a lot of time and effort to solving hard technical
> problems, we should be at least as willing to use some of that energy to
> solve the associated social problems as well.

Here's the thing: technological expertise in no way implies social expertise.
In fact anecdotally they are inversely correlated. Technologists would benefit
from moving in the humility direction outside of their chosen field, they are
already hubristic enough as is.

For what it's worth, this phenomenon is widespread beyond technologists. It's
easy to think that because you're really good in one field, that you must be
really good in other fields too. But sadly it generally isn't so.

~~~
heyitsguay
For sure, it's not up to technologists alone to solve these problems, but we
should be willing to be part of the larger discussion and to learn more about
the social ramifications of technological choices.

~~~
jerf
We _did_ have those discussions. That's why the licenses are written the way
they are. "Don't do evil" with the license is not a term that can be added
either in theory or in practice. There is no world in which suddenly the
prison-industrial complex is stopped because we wrote the right licenses.

You can make more narrow restrictions, but those will still have a way of
backfiring or having unanticipated results anyhow, not to mention that I'm yet
to see one of these sorts of licenses end up on a product where it actually
matters anyhow.

Practically and legally speaking, there's no lever here to discuss the misuse
of. I mean, heck, I'd give you at least a 25% chance these things were already
developed in a context that doesn't permit open source to be used anyhow.

------
olivermarks
[https://www.mytechfriends.com/contact.html](https://www.mytechfriends.com/contact.html)

Disgraceful people. The name of the company is particularly insulting...

~~~
saagarjha
Notice how the advertisement has "no cost to your facility" as the highlighted
part–there's no word about how much it costs inmates and their families.

~~~
olivermarks
Trying to think what one can do to combat this prison industrial complex cash
machine...

~~~
peteradio
Vigilante justice. Jk?

~~~
saagarjha
Sounds like a great way to end up in exactly the situation where you have to
deal with this issue but have no way to enact change…

~~~
ryanlol
How so? There’s so much you can do to harass people within the limits of the
law.

Just name and shame the individuals developing this kind of software, they
deserve much worse but it’s a good start.

~~~
saagarjha
Vigilante justice will land you in jail. There's not a whole lot you can do
from there.

~~~
ryanlol
Not at all, only very specific kinds of vigilante justice will land you in
jail. It is not difficult to hurt people without breaking the law.

------
dgjrhgi
Really inhumane. Don't the people implementing these projects have any
feelings? Why don't they think for a second from the perspectives of
prisoner/family? Human greed is growing day by day.

------
piker
> Even some advocates of the change admit that it has downsides for inmates
> and their families. Ryan Rickert, jail administrator at the Lowndes County
> Adult Detention Center, acknowledged to The Commercial Dispatch that inmates
> were disappointed they wouldn't get to see family members anymore.

> inmates were disappointed they wouldn't get to see family members anymore

------
chr1
Access to internet must be recognized as a constitutional right, and people in
prison should be able to freely use normal video calls and other messaging
apps, independently from in person meetings.

------
currymj
If you have literally any other option, don't work for these companies.

------
mnm1
This is the answer to the question, "How can we make inmates' lives more
miserable while at the same time profiting even more off of them?"

------
kirykl
On a related note, appearing in front of a judge by video is becomming more
common. Personally I think this is a violation of the 6th amendment.

~~~
ceejayoz
Out of curiosity, why? The right to face your accuser doesn't require you to
be able to hug them.

~~~
jerf
It does entitle you to face your accuser, though, not a recording of them, or
a simulation of them, or a live-face-hacked stream of them, or any of the
other things that may not be a concern right this very second but are coming
down the pike fast.

~~~
folkhack
I bet there's also a measurable difference in outcome when this type of
communication is forced through a screen. By removing the face-to-face
interaction you're making it easier to remove empathy from the situation...

But frankly welcome to the US - we have zero empathy for people who end up
incarcerated ='(

------
eeeeeeeeeeeee
This is disgusting. I work remotely so I know what is lost even over video
conferencing. I have no issue if this allows more face time between physical
visits, but to block physical visits entirely I would say is downright cruel
and unusual.

These wardens should be required to chat with their wives and children over
video chat only for at least a month and see how it feels.

------
maerF0x0
Soon they can replace the visitors with a terrible AI and we can go the full
distance to dehumanizing these people.

~~~
usrusr
AIs don't pay. The dystopia would be replacing the inmates with AI, either so
that they don't have to be fed anymore (dark horror future) or to simply
maximise lucrative visitor engagement (subtle black mirror style dark future).

------
hellodave555
What is wrong with America, makes me despair

~~~
malikNF
*world

------
chungleong
I don't know why people are demonizing this. By ending in-person visits, one
jail is able to redirect manpower towards its GED program. That's somehow
evil? No doubt video calls are inferior compared with face-to-face meetings,
but the trade off seem entirely reasonable. Inmates will have more
opportunities to talk to their family and they'll get more educational help.
It's a decidedly positive development.

~~~
gfs78
You have to take into account the loss due to the lack of in-person contact
with their cared ones.

------
RickJWagner
Surprisingly, the author doesn't mention that contraband (knives, phones,
drugs, etc.) can't be passed via video.

I'm not saying the video visits are a good thing, just that I'd rather have a
more balanced article.

~~~
anbop
Most prisons do visits through glass now, so no contraband that way either.

------
Havoc
That's pretty messed up no matter how you look at it.

------
tibbydudeza
Winning US prison system as usual.

