Meet the Prison Phone Company Profiting Off Love

[votesparks]

By Jesse Lava, Campaign Director, Beyond Bars & Sarah Solon, Communications Strategist, ACLU at 10:57am
While the two of us were writing this blog post, we called each other twice. Our organizations—the ACLU and Brave New Foundation—paid for the calls via flat monthly payments to our respective phone companies. The rates are reasonable, and if they weren't our workplaces could switch to different companies, which keeps prices competitive. Pretty straightforward.

That's not how it works if you have a loved one in prison. To talk to that person, you have to go through a company like Global Tel*Link, the country's biggest provider of prison phone services and the first subject of our new video series, Prison Profiteers. Global Tel*Link charges exorbitant rates to prisoners' families, sometimes reaching as high as $17 for a 15-minute call. That same conversation might cost $2 outside of prison, or just be bundled into a monthly package. Imagine the low-income families who are most affected by the prison system having to set aside that much money for conversations with mom or dad.

Full story: https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/meet-prison-phone-company-profiting-love

[Vox Moi]

1. You are hereby sentenced to five years as a commodity

Well, maybe it's good to have a good, honest look at what Free Market Capitalism can lead to.
When the idea is to make money from people who are made helpless there is no end to the possibilities.

Maybe CCA can find a way to sell human hair from the barbershop.

[LTR]

2. Appalling how law enforcement allows such extortion

The collect call scheme is pretty low, and almost become outmoded in the mobile phone era. In addition, they freely allow mugshot websites to post booking photos and shame people into paying exorbitant sums to remove them.

The prison system is often as sleazy as the people they incarcerate.