extremely mad because my relative in American prison has let me know that from now on, instead of being charged once per book or per song and having the files added permanently to his account, he's going to ALSO be charged by the minute to read or listen to music on the tablets that are the only things they're allowed to use.
reminder that paying prisoners (vastly) less than minimum wage is legal in the US because they're defined as an exception to anti-slavery laws.
Let me guess. Is this a private prison?
(Private prisons are a thing that should not exist, but somehow do in modern America.)
Yeah. Maybe so. The prison industry in this country is a crime, which is as ironic as it is tragic.
@bruce @0xabad1dea yep, private prison facilities are still relatively rare, actually. The bigger and more immediate problem is the treatment of prisoners even in public prisons; and that includes the extremely expensive “prison services” industry.
$0.30/hr for prison labor and $0.05/minute to read is obscene, and even moreso that it further punishes people who have reading difficulties.
@bruce @0xabad1dea Scholars and activist have coined the name prison–industrial complex for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex#Structure If you look at the history paragraph of that page the last change mentioned in the page was 2019.
I'm following an account on Mastodon which is about books for prisoners (lots of books are denied to enter prisons). I can't recall the account name but I'm all for more attention for this USA industry problem. #usa #prisons #prisoners
@butternut
We knew someone in jail (pretrial) for 18 months and had thought of sending them something. They were too poor to afford the cash bail, so you know they're not going to have a balance on their account.
The web site was horrible, like it should have had a 'works best with Netscape Navigator" badge, but the prices for everything. Nothing physical could be sent direct, but I could pay $100 to send $5 worth of snacks.
They weren't even convicted yet.
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