When New Jersey Switches Prison Tablet Companies, I’ll Lose 10 Years of Family Memories
Behind Bars, My Tablet Is More Than Just Tech
I only get paid $1 per hour as a teacher’s assistant, and my workdays are five hours. Truth be told, this $5 job is considered one of the best in the prison.
Prison is legalized slavery.
The US is a shithole
That definitely isn't getting better before 2029 unless a lot of people in Washington drop dead at once.
Don't let your dreams be dreams
Without clicking the link, that headline is tough to unpack.
A private company is selling cheap tablets to inmates to let them communicate with their family. They have to use "digital stamps" to send messages, 35 cents a piece and come in packs of 5, 10 or 20. Each stamp covers up to 20,000 characters or one single image.
They also sell songs, at $1.99 a piece, and some people have spent thousands over the years. That's also now just going away.
Then you get to the part about the new company. Who already has a system in Tennessee where inmates have to pay 3-5 cents per minute of tablet usage. Be that watching a movie they've bought or just typing a message.
The guy he killed lost 24 years of memories.
He was sentenced to prison for that crime. It wasn't part of his sentence for everyone to impose their own abuses and disrespects on top of that.
This only bothers me to the extent that it affects the innocent who are in prison. For the rest, this inconvenience is part of the punishment you’re serving.
Shouldn't the point of prison rehabilitation be that the inmates be encouraged to build stronger social connections to reduce recidivism? Isolating and further punishing them like this seems like it's going to make it more difficult to rebuild their lives post incarceration.
Coulda woulda shoulda. We have a gulag system weaponized against the poor with a dash of "criminal justice"
post incarceration.
Author of this article is serving a life sentence. He's been in prison over 15 years so far, and won't be eligible for parole for another 52 years, at which time he will be 97 years old.
"Post incarceration", he'll be mailed to his next of kin in a tiny plastic bag. There is no "rebuilding" of his life after incarceration. This is the rest of his life.
I do think he should be earning at least minimum wage for his work while imprisoned. But, $6.25 of his $7.25/hr wages should be garnished and divided among the estates of his victim(s). If they refuse the money, the state should offer the job to any other prisoner whose victims will actually accept restitution.
I'd go so far as to intercept up to 75% of the funds deposited into his commissary account as victim restitution.
Disagree. Prisons should be for rehabilitation, not punishment. You shouldn't want to go to prison, but you should come out better than you went in.
I would say this punishment would be both cruel and unusual.
Also, it's arbitrary and capricious - this is hitting everyone in the prison, regardless of their sentence, just because they happen to be incarcerated at the wrong place and time