Hundreds of counties around the USA have ended in-person jail visits, replacing them with video calls and earning a cut of the profits
Do Children Have a “Right to Hug” Their Parents?
The modern prison-communication industry emerged four decades ago, after the federal government broke up A.T. & T.’s Bell System. New phone companies competed for customers by slashing prices. But inside prisons and jails a different model developed: telecom companies persuaded local officials to sign exclusive service contracts in exchange for hefty commissions. The costs of these commissions were passed along to incarcerated “customers” and their families, who lacked consumer choice. Price gouging was the inevitable result. By the nineties, prison phone-call prices in some jurisdictions had soared to twenty dollars for fifteen minutes.
I'll never understand how and why prisons and anything related are allowed to be privatized.
People make mistakes and some are prison worthy. However, we want them to do their time, grow in the process, and ultimately return to society as better people. Instead, we throw people in prison who don't belong there, keep out privileged ones who do far worse and need prison, don't provide the needed help, and make prison so miserable that people can't actually grow into something better.
WTF. I jokingly wanted to be a king (dictator) as a teen because I figured it would be faster to fix things... starting with firing every politician (although at that age I said 'off with their heads'). It's such a horrible idea. It wouldn't work. But then that thought comes back in moments like this and I'm like, "just give me a few years to fix things and clean things up". Ugh. No wonder people eventually end up doing insane things. How long can we wait for reform?
I'll never understand how and why prisons and anything related are allowed to be privatized.
It starts with a government trying to balance its budget. It can't cut schools because parents will get upset.
You can't cut services because they are already cut to the bone.
You can't raise taxes because that will just piss off everyone.
So...who can you piss off and they can't vote you out?
Cutting the prison budget often doesn't get headlines. But raising their budget often does and makes you "soft on crime".
So it's an easy target for budgets, especially at the local level.
False narrative, Biden circumvented congress to give Israel close to a hundred billion dollars in the past year, a billion just yesterday, no questions asked, we have the money
People make mistakes and some are prison worthy. However, we want them to do their time, grow in the process, and ultimately return to society as better people. Instead, we throw people in prison who don’t belong there, keep out privileged ones who do far worse and need prison, don’t provide the needed help, and make prison so miserable that people can’t actually grow into something better.
This is 100% NOT the purpose of prisons in the United States. It SHOULD be about rehabilitation and having consequences for your actions, but prisons in America are more like 50/50: corporate profit and vengeance/vindictiveness.
The rest of what you said, funny enough, is exactly why people are voting for Trump. They're convinced that he gives a shit, and they're convinced he's going to go all "off with their heads" which is why they're never turned off by how outrageous he is and how absolutely unprofessional he is. It's exactly what they want, burn the current system and fix it.
Oh, we've already seen, he has no problem burning things down...
😖
"earning"
The headline is not specific so I wonder which country this could be, that mistreats prisoners and also profits from it?
Edit: The headline is more specific now.
Which country?
Good question/fair point, let me improve that headline a bit
easy to guess, they use "freedom units"
I'm not sure what the old title was, but it looks like the only "freedom unit" now is "profits"
How can we make more money off of prisons-for-profit? We’ll soon charge for a bedsheet. Maybe we already do. Prolly in a place like Texas or Alabama.
The cruelty is the point, as ever. And you gotta keep up those recidivism rates, otherwise, who's going to fill all the private prisons?
Really shows the impact of the for-profit movement. As long as they're at the top, it's all good to them.