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:
Video chat wouldn't be so bad if the friends or relatives can't physically be there.
But not as a 1:1 replacement. And certainly not for a fee. It's asinine for someone to have to pay for this and I hope someone drops a lawsuit on them for this obvious travesty.
Would you severely limit the time? If you don't, and you don't charge a fee, then the costs become insane.
You see, this isn't just a data connection. Somebody must be paid to observe the video, making sure that it isn't being used for crime. That person must understand the accent, slang, codewords, and everything else. That person must be trustworthy. That person won't be cheap.
Without an observer, prisoners will get up to all sorts of mischief. They will order witnesses and judges killed. They will continue to operate organized crime. They will pass along threats.
Right!? You can't have prisons run by for-profit companies and then expect everyone to believe you want low recidivism rates - much less low crime rates. Bodies make the businesses money, businesses making money keep running the jails/prisons, and "being tough on crime" gets the votes - so it's a self-perpetuating machine.
>These services are ludicrously expensive. Video calls cost 40¢ per minute in Newton County, 50¢ per minute in Lowndes County, and $10 per call in Allen County.
The use of the video system is now compulsory, in person visits are banned, and another at-cost for families of criminals is seemingly tacked on because... ...freedom? Capitalism?
At what point do we agree tapping the families of inmates (note: not the inmates, themselves) out of money is going too far?
> You can't have prisons run by for-profit companies
IIRC only ~10% of prisoners are held in privately run prisons. It's kind of a red herring.
The bigger (and much harder to solve issue) is that all prisons, public or private, work with a slew of private companies in order to run (think food, phones, etc.) who have big incentives to keep the prison population high. And they can easily prey on prisoners, who are generally much poorer than the general population, because of America's concept of "justice".
But these huge costs of, say, video calls, are borne by the families of the incarcerated, who, like the prisoners that they're supporting, skew poor. As you pointed out, it's a vicious cycle.
After living in the US since 2000 I believe that a majority of the US population believes in the punishment aspect of prison and thinks it's OK to make prison life as miserable as possible. There is not much thought about rehabilitation and I have heard lines like "Why do we have to pay for job training for them if I have to pay for college?" even from very liberal people. Punishing people as hard as possible is deeply entrenched in the american psyche.
> I have heard lines like "Why do we have to pay for job training for them if I have to pay for college?" even from very liberal people.
I would argue most "very liberal people" would argue that both should be free. Granted, I'm not in the US, but free college is quite favourable nation-wide in the US in polls over the past few years -- let alone among progressive circles.
You know, there are legitimate answers to that strawmanish question. Why would you say something ridiculous like that, which just begs the further response, "Well, then we better not release such monsters at all..."
increasing the number of capital crimes might actually to increase the number of murders. If you are committing a capital crime, you have a strong incentive to get rid of the witnesses.
I’ve heard very few people arguing to expand the list of capital crimes. After all, California hasn’t even executed more than 700 people on death row, let alone all the other first degree murderers who could be executed without any expansion in the list of capital crimes.
> But these huge costs of, say, video calls, are borne by the families of the incarcerated, who, like the prisoners that they're supporting, skew poor.
Video-only options are inhumane, but the family gets screwed either way.
Prisons are built way out in the country and not easily accessible. These same poor families can end up commuting for four hours, burning through a tank of gas and hours of their time just to see a loved one for 30 minutes.
It takes its toll on them and eventually they stop coming to see you anyway. Video should have solved that problem as an alternative but of course, human nature being what it is...
I'd almost be okay with the COSTS of the tech being borne by the families, Even with a reasonable profit to the company, but the extra kickback to the jail gives a very perverse incentive to raise rates over and over, to bring in more fees.
It also means someone with a competing product, that is better, and cheaper, won't be looked at seriously, if it doesn't include kickbacks.. (or do we call it something else now?)
> IIRC only ~10% of prisoners are held in privately run prisons. It's kind of a red herring.
I disagree. Even if only 10% of prisoners are held in privately run prisons, the corporate leadership of those prisons has a disproportionate effect on policy-making for all people. CCA and GeoGroup are the largest recipients of federal contract award grants (for ICE), and they collectively make over 1bn / year from these contracts. They also sponsor legislation that _increases recidivism_ and makes it easier to put undocumented immigrants in their own jails. Just because a small % of the population is housed in private prisons, doesn't mean that private prison's have no impact on our society's relationship between profit and punishment.
> You can't have prisons run by for-profit companies and then expect everyone to believe you want low recidivism rates
Sure you can, it's just no one is doing. The private market is very efficient at finding the most efficient way to provide the things they are paid for. In this case they are paid to house people where house has a specific minimum definition. They figure out how to provide that stuff and nothing else.
If instead we paid in a way that encouraged reducing recidivism they would find a way to do that instead. For example today (according to google) the average prissioner costs $30K per year per inmate. let's say we paid $10K per year as a base, but then paid another $10K every year a former prisoner didn't commit a new crime for 5-7 years after they got out. Then these companies would be looking for ways to ensure that people don't reoffend because that means they lose out on the vast majority of their pay. I would expect the greedy selfish private prison companies to start providing lots things that prisoners will need to be successful when they leave for example behavior management strategies, life skills classes, GED programs, diagnosis and treatment for mental illness, even providing free post release things like job placement, or family counseling. All because these are things the will prevent recidivism and get them that sweet yearly payout.
The thing about greedy capitalists, is they are very easy manage, if you are the one paying them. If they are the ones paying you... well we call that corruption.
Really I think the fact we don't see more of this type of pattern suggests that city and states that run prisons care more about punishment than rehabilitation.
That's what you propose sounds like a really good idea. One concern though: it seems that many people (not all of them) who end up in prison are not really a good people. Maybe for some of them education, psychological help, etc. would indeed help, however there could be a certain and not negligible percentage of people who will not take advantage of those opportunities and prefer to be criminals. No private company would decide to risk its income for a potentially bad bet. Recidivism rates in the US are high - from 45 to 80 percent (depending on various factors). Even if this was cut to best of the World Swedish 40% recidivism rate, this still will not be economically viable.
That's more a matter, then, of adjusting the algorithm such that you recognize there will always be some recidivism, and you tier your goals, such that current status is "barely profitable", costs covered, etc., and that each leap to a new tier is more and more profitable.
> but then paid another $10K every year a former prisoner didn't commit a new crime for 5-7 years after they got out.
Then you'd have a private corporation with agents with direct access to people with criminal backgrounds and connections with a direct financial incentive to ensure that an ex-prisoner was not identified as the perpetrator of any crimes in a certain period.
municipalities are also very concerned with costs and revenue. around here many sheriffs make running their jail at the lowest cost to the county as possible their major point of electability. revenue from the usurious rates the video call services charge is in fact a major reason they’re implemented.
> 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.
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?
I’ve heard the main challenge is that Judges and DAs are (often) elected. If you err on the side of putting someone in jail for too long or who doesn’t deserve it it’s not as outrageous to the community as if someone slips through the cracks, gets out early and murders someone, etc.
So there is huge pressure to avoid false negatives but not so much on false positives, so to speak.
Other things too, and there have been cases of illegal kickbacks to judges for sentencing.
Right now we seem to be optimizing for number of people in jail per capita - and we lead the world in this.
We ought to consider optimizing for lower crime in general (which is much broader than the prison system) but recidivism seems like a good place to start.
There are many off the shelf programs that are shown to reduce recidivism, we could start there.
I’m also curious about a model of cooperatively run prisons. Perhaps even a model where when you are set free it means you are offered a job in the prison for higher pay since you understand the system and have gained respect of other inmates.
This would also allow for mentorship and ongoing relationships.
Ideas that seem worth exploring are:
Natural outdoor spaces where prisoners farm, build their own tiny homes, meditate, get access to psychedelic therapy, learn leadership skills, make stuff, art, etc.
You essentially create a “life / society” incubator for the types of beliefs, behaviors relationships and systems that you are optimizing for in the greater community at large.
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.
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.
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.
#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.
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.
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).
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.
Do you honestly think that slave owners simply gave up after slavery became illegal in the US? No, they simply found new and ingenuitive ways of exploiting people. Winning a battle is seldom ever winning the war.
FWIW, I still see prison labor pools around Boulder even after passing that. They're not really relying on that clause, but instead the idea that the prisoners could choose not to work. Personally, given the actions of some of our police lately, I'm afraid that this choice might be similar to a slave's choice to work or be whipped.
Prison labor can be rewarding and help build up the skills that a person needs when they are rehabilitated. A lot of the buffalo milk in the US comes from the Canon City Prison in Colorado. In 2013, prisoners there earned about $5/day [0]. CPR did a great story on them. Choice quote:
> A Colorado Corrections Department study showed if prisoners spent the last nine months of their incarceration working, they had a 19 percent better chance of not reoffending.
Though the pay, is for sure, terrible, a 1/5 better chance for work that the prisoners seem to take pride in is not the worst of deals.
A lot of Hot Shots are prisoners too. From sawyers I know, they say the prisoners are treated well and have a good shot at getting a crew spot after incarceration. But that's ancedata.
Again, it's dependent on the person, the state, and the labor. There are, for sure, a lot of bad and shady things going on. But there are some good thing too.
> Prison labor can be rewarding and help build up the skills that a person needs when they are rehabilitated.
Your definition of rewarding is flexible or how you say it loose. Someone forced into a situation where that's all they do isn't going to think whatever they're doing is rewarding unless they've had the shittiest life ever. I'm guessing you believe whatever is put on camera or written by people who run the horror shows hidden away from modern society.
It's heavily dependent upon the person, the state laws, and the prison. Each case is a unique situation.
Not all prisons are run like how Sheriff Joe likes to grandstand. Some states have forced labor and utilize what is effectively slavery, some explicitly forbid it. It's highly variable. Each inmate's situation and case is very unique.
> I'm guessing you believe whatever is put on camera or written by people who run the horror shows hidden away from modern society
Now, I'm going to take a bit of issue with this. You do not know me, I do not know you. I'm sure you are a person with as equally a long and complicated life as mine. We all have loads to carry and there is no such thing as the 'shitty life' championships. We all hurt and we all deserve love.
That said, I have deep personal connections to the prison system in a few states. Some people that I deeply care about have been affected by unlawful activities, some are lawyers, some are wardens, some are under rehabilitation and are inmates right now. I still care deeply about them all. I have my own opinions about the prison system in these states and the unique cases that each person presents. I do not believe whatever is put on camera. I do not believe whatever is written by people who run the 'horror shows' that are 'hidden' away.
Prison reform starts with you, bellerose. It starts with me, Balgair. Its starts with every single HN reader. Nothing in this world will work unless we do.
Though the road to prison reform is long and there are near countless set-backs, we are making great strides. Have Hope! Florida recently enfranchised felons, a fantastic achievement for your fellow rehabilitated citizens and a large step forward on the long path of justice: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/us/florida-felons-voting-...
I've been trying to bring social change myself in my spare time.
I try to teach people about determinism and where free will is an illusion. How every event experienced is factored from the preceding event and where nobody has any control in life. The starting point being a person's birth is the key in how everything will play out. I think once people become educated in understanding determinism, real change can happen and where people will understand why people are ending up in these horror shows.
Society is fundamentally broken because of the finances being so diverse, the education system heavily dependent on where a person lives and parental abuse or poor genetics. Right now people are reading hogwash that makes them think they have choice in their life and continues to flourish the faulty system of what we have today. Allowing people to end up in the bottom of the barrel. Devoid of any true humanity. I thought I should share with you because you could have this on the list as well
Is there a good quanititative source of information, on the GDP output of goods/services produced by prisoners (or something close to that)? When I was young and didnt know any better, I just thought prisoners produce small things -- like license plates, maybe some furniture repair..
Prison labor is extensive, and they make an absolute pittance for their work. The justification is that the state is providing room and board so they are just recovering costs.
But the other comment about prisons just replacing slavery is spot on. Former slaveowners were terrified of the prospect of rebellion, or worse, simply being outnumbered and losing political control with a simple vote. So they worked overtime to disenfranchise and repress former slaves through abuse of the legal system. Ripples of these measures still flow through society today.
> Food for thought: slavery is illegal in the U.S. except if it occurs as part of punishment for a crime!
In case anyone reads this and thinks it's just commentary - this is literally enshrined in the U.S. Constitution (13th Amendment, emphasis added):
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
So the authors of busybox, linux kernel, display drivers, and all of the myriad open source components used are responsible for basically every embedded hardware product in the world?
I believe the guy who made jslint added a clause to all his MIT licensed software just like that. Lots of people complained and Google ended up building their own implementation of whatever bit they liked and wanted to include in their own software to bypass the licensing issues.
Prison telecom companies are already an ethical black hole. Fees for local calls can run on the order of dollars per minute, and payment is made as difficult and punitive as possible for the families.
BUT, maybe there's room for a reasonably permissive proprietary license that is based around moral restrictions. Plenty of people still use proprietary software; so if you're already doing that, I could see a semi-open "ethics license" fitting in. You couldn't include it in other GPL or MIT licensed libraries, but again, if you're already building proprietary software, those restrictions probably don't matter to you.
From their site: "Has an upgrade ever made your system worse? Each time new features are added to Lockdown, automated transaction testing is used to verify that the financials remain rock solid."
There it is, its all about squeezing money from the prisons resources. In this case unfortunately those resources are human beings that have been downgraded to less than human. I could not imagine the mind set it takes to willfully profit on human suffering.
They actually brag [0] in their youtube video on how they can censor the video feed to improve control over 'behaviour', 'clothing', and 'messaging'. wow. that is just crazy.
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.
Stop them from being able to lobby politicians. The only way we allow people to be treated like this is because we allow corporations to legally bribe our elected officials. We also keep voting for those same officials.
It’s also because a large portion of the US population wants the officials to be as tough on crime as we are. You need to not just fix the politicians, you need to fix America
Seems like if someone just handed out contact information for the owners and management of those prison-service companies to everyone that left a facility, the problem would eventually take care of itself.
Ideally, the lawyers would work it out, but if not, the recidivism rate might.
I don't feel at all conflicted about the possibility that anyone might get more than what's coming to them. The misery of others should not be a for-profit industry--not for the criminals, and definitely not for the prisons. Keeping prisoners just seems like one of those jobs where no one who actually wants to do it should ever be allowed to.
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.
> 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
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.
The 6th amendment provides the right "to be confronted with the witnesses". The wording clearly implies a face-to-face meeting. The problem with video testimony is that the jury's ability to observe a witness's demeanor is severely limited. And even with two-way video, the witness wouldn't really be testifying in the accused's presence as he/she could see mainly just the questioner.
Because there are subtle differences that make interpretation of another human different over video and face-to-face.
Has nothing to do with physical contact. When does someone in a court ever make physical contact with the other party except maybe shaking hands anyway?
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.
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 ='(
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.
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).
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.
You understood why video-only appearances in court by the accused are problematic. Extend that reasoning to why video-only contact with people who love and support them is not an adequate replacement for face-to-face meetings.
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/reports/prisonvisits.html
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/phones/state_of_phone_justice.h...
[0]: https://law.yale.edu/system/files/area/center/liman/document...
[1]: https://mn.gov/doc/assets/11-11MNPrisonVisitationStudy_tcm10...