via vocativ.com
American prisons have constructed an outrageous money-generating system that charges exorbitant fees for families to send money to inmates, for the inmates to use the money on debit cards, and even inactivity fees when the inmates don’t use the cards, according to an investigation by Al Jazeera America.
And perhaps most disgusting of all, the private companies that operate these revenue streams are required to send kickbacks to the government agencies that operate the prisons. It is an elaborate scheme that generates millions in profits by bilking dollars and cents from some of the country’s poorest and most vulnerable families.
“Prison is a racket,” Delonda McInelly, a former inmate at Arizona’s Perryville facility, told Al Jazeera. “It really is a profitable business. The families are being treated like criminals and it’s not fair.”
State, local and federal government agencies spend tens of billions of dollars a year to operate the nation’s prisons. In addition to that, a vast web of private companies make billions providing services including transportation, food, medical care and telephone calls.
As can be expected, America’s voracious capitalist system has figured out a way to make huge dollars exploiting society’s weakest and most vulnerable people. Combined with a racist criminal justice system, the end result is that a large percentage of the exploited are Black.
And unlike with consumer debit cards, there’s no regulation of these prison release cards, meaning the banks can charge whatever they want.
This is a list of the various fees agencies manage to squeeze from inmates and their families, according to the report:
*An ATM withdrawal fee of nearly $3 per transaction on the debit cards—called “release cards”—the prisons use to hand over the money the inmate has collected from family members and prison jobs when the inmate is released.
*A $1.50 fee per balance inquiry.
*An account maintenance fee of as much as $2.50 per week, even if no transactions are made.
*A closing fee of $30 to transfer the funds to a bank account.
*A fee of 30 percent or more for family members to send an electronic money transfer.
* In states such as Arizona, a $25 background check fee for every first-time visitor to the prison.
* In some states, an automatic 1 percent fee for every deposit into an inmate’s account.
In addition, while families previously used money orders to send funds, some facilities have eliminated that as an option, forcing families to use the pricey money transfer system, with its outrageous 30 percent fee. Facilities that still allow money orders require them to be sent to the vendor, not the prison—resulting in a process that could take weeks for the money to hit the inmate’s account. It’s a not-so-subtle way to force families to use the money transfer system.
Rosemary Collins, who has a son in Alabama’s St. Clair state prison, told Al Jazeera she has to mail a money order to the vendor Keefe Group in St. Louis.
“For a money order I have to mail it to Missouri,” she said. “I’m in Alabama. It takes about two weeks for it to get to my son’s account. That’s the slow boat to China.”
“People used to send a money order directly to the institution and it took 2-3 days to get into your account. After JPay [one of the biggest vendors] it took 7-14 days before the money got credited,” Adryann Glenn, an inmate who was locked up in Virginia, told Al Jazeera. “JPay doesn’t really want your money order. They want you to use the money transfer.”
On the government’s side of the ledger, most of these private vendors send a cut of the collected fees directly to the prison agencies and jails. According to Al Jazeera, “These ‘commissions,’ essentially legalized kickbacks, make money transfers and other fee-generating services a reliable profit engine for the corrections agencies themselves.”
“These companies compete not by offering the best product to the people who use them,” said Carl Takei of the ACLU, “but by offering the biggest commission to [the agencies] that sign the contracts.”
For example, JPay’s contract with the Florida Department of Corrections sends the government agency a fixed commission of $2.50 for every money transfer.
In Indiana, JPay’s agreement guarantees a minimum of $100,000 in guaranteed annual commission payments to the prison agency.
“This is essentially found money for corrections departments that are often faced with staffing shortages and budget cuts in a country with the world’s highest incarceration rate,” Al Jazeera writes.
A 2014 survey commissioned by the New Jersey Department of Corrections found that in addition to adoption by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 17 state prison agencies reported using the release cards.
Peter Wagner of the Prison Policy Initiative told Al Jazeera that their use is even more widespread among the nation’s nearly 3,300 jails. With almost 12 million people admitted to county and city jails each year, that means an enormous stream of cardholders subject to high fees.
While banking conglomerate JPMorgan Chase is the exclusive release-card vendor in federal prisons, the contracts in the state and local facilities are managed by smaller vendors such as JPay, Keefe Group, Numi Financial and Rapid Financial Solutions.
It’s not a stretch to imagine that a large percentage of the families who are sucked into this vast profit-making system are poor and struggling to keep food on the table. Julie Donald told Al Jazeera she sends money regularly to a close friend in Arizona’s Eyman state prison in varying amounts, depending on how much she can afford.
“Lately because I’ve been hurting on money I’ve been sending him only $25,” she said. “And it’s been a $5 fee just to do that. I don’t have a lot of money. If you keep adding [the fees] up it’s a lot.”
To afford to send money on a tight budget, Donald said, “I just don’t pay some bills.”
Dottie Smith broke down the particulars for the money she sends to her sister, who has been in Arizona’s Perryville prison for 15 years.
“We just sent her money today,” she said. “We sent $45 and they charged us $6.45. My mom and I do a ton of these money transfers. We alternate and send her money every other week. My mom works an extra job just so she can have money to send.”
Yup it is called the prison industrial complex what else is new the new form of slavery using convicts and volunteers through plea bargaining as workers to fuel the system.ON SIMPLE SOLUTION STOP GETTING LOCKED UP THAT WILL BREAK THE UNJUST SYSTEM.
The land of the free is truly an illusion. There are more people in jail in the US of America than China which has 4 times our population.
The 'new plantation'..same as the 'old one'…slavery never ended..they just made the plantation parameters 'invisible' and told us we 'is free now'..what a damn crock of shit..
I was with you til you said the solution is stopped getting locked up..that's like telling slaves to stop being caught so they won't end up slaves..if everything in this society is a set up for the prison gulag–if the set up starts from cradle, then how likely is it if you are unaware and uninformed you are going to be able to escape? Everything is a set up for either prison or debt slavery. Pick one.
America has from the time of the abolishment of slavery, come up with a scheme to rid the black man of his money. This country was built on the morals of Satan and continues to act with such moral to this day, without change…
Hassan, with the STOP GETTING LOCKED comment, I am assuming that you have a plan to STOP THE WHITE MAN from willfully locking up innocent people…
Horrors! I say just put 'em all on an island and let them fend for themselves, with no cost to taxpayers whatsoever, and no "exploitation" by private banks or anyone else.
So I take it you'll be leaving for a less Satanic country then, right?
Yep… because we have more criminals to deal with.
Well Fairfield, Alabama just released all of their prisoners due to lack of Funding so either way it's going to be a lose-lose situation.
The reason why we have so many more prisoners than China, is because China takes many convicted of crimes out back of the court house, and puts a bullet in their heads, instead of warehousing them for decades.
Welcome to the new America, where Orange is the new "red, white and blue"!
It's ridiculous that all anyone reads out of this is that is against the black man…it's against anyone in the prison system. I know plenty of non-blacks that are incarcerated…stop feeling sorry for yourselves and realize that if we keep segregating ourselves in articles and conversation, nothing is going to keep others from segregating us as well. We keep the cycle alive by doing that.
Nonsense. While this prison money-making scheme is immoral and should absolutely be stopped, it can all be avoided if you don't. commit. a. crime.
My comment was not for the reason of garnering a response from someone who don't know shit about what it means to be black in America. Sir, please stay in your lane. To the devil, being black was reason enough to enslave and keep them enslaved for almost three centuries. So don't come here with your dumbass suggestions as to how to stay out of prison. Just being black is reason enough for the devil to imprison them. The system was created and supervised by none other than Satan's children. I'm sure you can identify with that.
Peter H. Baisley…They take them out back and put a bullet in their heads in America, as well. It's called, "Killing an Unarmed Blackman". I could never figure out how a police with a gun could be so afraid of a person with no weapon. Peccawoods use the size and color of man to justify their fear. And they get away with it.
John Brandt It's not as simple as 'don't commit a crime' when you are Black in America. There are Blacks who commit crimes and there are Whites who commit crimes, but there are far more Blacks in prison for crimes they did not commit. Besides, just because these people are in prison does not justify the government, banks, and credit card vendors taking advantage of them and their families. These entities are committing practices that are unethical and are most likely illegal or they would be doing the same thing to the general public. If you condone what the government and these corporations are doing then you are the one who needs to raise your standards.
They are t akeing money from every race not just black people
It has nothing to do with feeling sorry for yourself or segregating yourself from others. In case you are unaware, approximately 12-13% of the U.S. population is African American and 40% of males incarcerated in U.S. prisons are Black men. Unfortunately, Black men happen to be the majority in the prison system. I think that's a good reason to focus in on Black men when talking about the prison system. Besides, the article also mentioned that a large percentage of those being exploited are Blacks. If Blacks don't show concern for each other, there are very few non-Blacks who will.
How do you stop getting locked up? Are you aware that there have been several Blacks released after being imprisoned several years for crimes they didn't commit? Are you aware that Blacks are being arrested for petty crimes that Whites would not have been arrested for? Some of these inmates were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or, in the right place at the wrong time, while being Black. Even for those prisoners who are guilty of the crime, it still does not justify a system profiting from them and their families by using unethical practices.
Peter H. Baisley Are you implying that the U.S. should do the same thing as China? Well, as Juanita said, there are many Blacks that the police haven't given a chance to experience due process. The police has simply shot them down in the street and claimed they felt their life was threatened. Besides, there are probably many Black men incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit, especially when you consider that several have been released after spending 10, 20, and 30 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. I wonder how many have been executed who were actually innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. That's something that many supporters of the death penalty never really stop to consider. It's easy to talk about taking someone else's life, but try putting the shoe on the other foot. You may just find yourself in that position, the position of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
John Brandt: Correction. If you don't get caught committing a crime, or convicted for committing a crime. If police don't harass you because of your skin color, or where you live. What you don't look for, you don't find.
Also, if they don't give you a lot of prison time for the same offenses….
The system is biased and rigged, and we all know it. You show your bias by trying to justify it.
@ John Brandt.
JL: Such a stupid comment when considering the FACT….many in prison are innocent…but since they couldn't afford an attorney agreed to take a plea bargain than to face the likelihood of receiving much more time than the plea agreement.
Prisons are supposed to punish the guilty….NOT their families, too.
Two, Rosemary is right about "Whites generally not going to prison for their crimes" due to a good old White boy system that slaps them on the wrist while giving People of Color (African-, Asian- & Latino/a-Americans and Native "Americans") much harsher penalties….even when a White defendant committed the same crime and has a similar criminal history.
"Nearly 70% of the devastating violence we experience in our communities is committed by white men and nearly 50% of that is committed by young white men between the ages of fifteen and thirty.
What kind of violence am I referring to? Take your pick.
Domestic violence, rape, acquaintance rape, incest, male on male fights, serial killings, racist hate crimes, gay-bashing, arson, campus riots, and barroom brawls. Estimates are that 95% of all violence in our society is committed by males, and although women, men of color, and white men of all ages certainly can be violent, the overwhelming majority of acts of violence can be traced to young white men.
JL continuing: You can't even tell White males are committing this much violence due to the biased way the mainstream, White-owned media conceals violence committed by Whites….while OVER-FOCUSING on poor, young Black males in poor inner-city areas.
http://www.paulkivel.com/resources/articles/item/49-young-white-men-scared-entitled-and-cynical
"American prisons have constructed an outrageous money-generating system that charges exorbitant fees for families to send money to inmates, for the inmates to use the money on debit cards, and even inactivity fees when the inmates don’t use the cards, according to an investigation by Al Jazeera America.
And perhaps most disgusting of all, the private companies that operate these revenue streams are required to send kickbacks to the government agencies that operate the prisons. It is an elaborate scheme that generates millions in profits by bilking dollars and cents from some of the country’s poorest and most vulnerable families.
A a vast web of private companies make billions providing services including transportation, food, medical care and telephone calls.
This is a list of the various fees agencies manage to squeeze from inmates and their families, according to the report:
*An ATM withdrawal fee of nearly $3 per transaction on the debit cards—called “release cards”—the prisons use to hand over the money the inmate has collected from family members and prison jobs when the inmate is released.
*A $1.50 fee per balance inquiry.
*An account maintenance fee of as much as $2.50 per week, even if no transactions are made.
*A closing fee of $30 to transfer the funds to a bank account.
*A fee of 30 percent or more for family members to send an electronic money transfer.
* In states such as Arizona, a $25 background check fee for every first-time visitor to the prison.
* In some states, an automatic 1 percent fee for every deposit into an inmate’s account.
For more see:
http://atlantablackstar.com/2015/04/21/outrageous-prison-scheme-allows-banks-and-private-companies-to-make-millions-exploiting-inmates-and-their-families/
@Peter H. Baisley
JL: The U.S. incarcerates more people than all of the other capitalist countries around the world.
Hence, WHY would you only cite communist China?
You're just as freaking STUPID as you can be.
@Peter H. Baisley
JL: The U.S. incarcerates more people than all of the other capitalist countries around the world.
Hence, WHY would you only cite communist China?
Two, over 395 people have been released from prison with the help of the Innocence Project, other organizations and dedicated individuals.
Hence, if each prisoner is "taken out back & shot"…..then NO ONE innocent would have an opportunity to prove they were not guilty.
You're just as freaking STUPID as you can be.
the first step in the system is Justice System that GUARANTEES a steady flow of inmates to the prisons to be exploited. Prison contracts with the state include clauses guaranteeing occupancy rates.
**Anna Camarena:
JL: Even the article conveys:
"As can be expected, America’s voracious capitalist system has figured out a way to make huge dollars exploiting society’s weakest and most vulnerable people. Combined with a racist criminal justice system, the end result is that a large percentage of the exploited are Black."
Hence, readers generally focus on their "own" groups….but NOT all of us.
As a community activist, I ALWAYS include all People of Color(African-, Asian- & Latino/a-Americans and Native "Americans") in my posts here and other sites, on my Facebook page, etc.
I have worked against racism targeting many groups besides African Americans.
Although most Immigrants of Color arrive in the U.S. hating Blacks before they even have an opportunity to interact with us due to the fact that the mainstream, White-owned media disseminates racist information about us all over the globe, there are some Immigrants of Color who eventually find out that they have been FOOLED by Whites.
Yet, most Asians and other non-Black groups are MOST LIKELY to marry Whites than other People of Color.
Thirty-eight percent of married Japanese women in the U.S…..are married to White men.
http://www.asian-nation.org/interracial.shtml
However, ALL Media of Color and associated individual commenters….need to include the injustices experienced by other Groups of Color….NOT just Black-owned media and/or individual African Americans.
Everybody needs to be doing it.
In regards to posts about "BlackLivesMatter," I've been posting a slew of articles showing that Asian- & Latino/a-Americans and Native "Americans are also battling police brutality….discrimination in banking, education, employment, housing, etc.
Asian American Social Justice Orgs:
http://www.asianamerican.net/organizations.html.
"Untold Civil Rights Stories: Asian Americans Speak Out for Justice (2009).
Co-published with Asian Pacific American Legal Center.
http://www.aasc.ucla.edu/aascpress/books/untoldcivilrights.aspx
The White-owned media whited-out this press conference in May 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Kapal-OXQ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ1Nu7fu30U.
Latinos/as:
http://www.nclr.org/.
"Hispanic and African-Americans: Celebrating Partners for Social Justice".
http://blog.aarp.org/2014/09/29/hispanic-and-african-americans-celebrating-partners-for-social-justice/.
Black people are DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECTED….despite the FACT Whites commit 70% of violent crimes in the U.S., most of the crimes against women & children, makeup 70% of drug traffickers & users…but Blacks and Latinos/as makeup 70% of those imprisoned for drugs, commit most of the white- and pink- collared crimes, etc.
Read my other posts above for links to various articles.
Anna, it's pretty obvious that you don't have anything against black men. But you are not the right person to speak on how blacks are treated in this country. You are probably saying WE because of injection by a black man. People like you don't help the cause. So perhaps you should just be quiet…
I spent plenty of time in jail all because of drugs I was a piece of shit tweaker six time felon and I turned my shit around left state and never loked back it dont matter who you are its all if you wanna do something about it for your self
Well Juanita, I am actually a minority as well…blacks are not the only minority discriminated against in this country. Thanks for your suggestion though…perhaps you also think that we who are raising the next generation of black men should have no opinion on how they have been and will be treated? Great stance to take Juanita.
A.. anyone who reads al jazeera is a traitor… B..dont commit crimes and you wont be in prison… C..there are more black criminals, you do the math…how much do you the taxpayer pay for thugs to have cable tv and eat snickers
They rob white people too; these companies are equal opportunity exploiters.
Anna, it's visible that you are a minority. However, I don't see the next generation of black boys that you claim to be raising. At least not from your photo. With that being said, I made a comment to you because you felt that you had a right to tell someone how they should feel….AND YOU DON'T. Yes you are a minority, in more ways than one. But you're not black and your son doesn't appear to be either. And whether you realize it or not, when someone speaks as a black person, that's because they know what it means to be black. So, don't speak for us…thank you.
John Brandt Screw your standards, you honky sumbitch (from a 70+ y.o. white guy). You don't know jack shytt about how people get put in jail, and your oversimplifications make me barf.
Take a trip to Ferguson, mofo, and see how long you get locked up for the crime of jaywalking.
Why do you need money in prison anyway….there should no money allowed its prison
The constitution was written when all African Americans were slaves so can we truly believe this is the land of the free
Another naive citizen that truly has no clue….contrary to your belief, they need funds to buy food from the commissary so they don't starve from the square meals that are worse than hospital food, and are not so square, telephone to call home, stamps to mail letters to family and legal mail, toiletries that are not included in the basic package provided, you name it they don't receive it unless a loving family or friend cares enough to do so….The list could go on and on…they already have their freedom restricted, they shouldn't be denied basic things we have a privilege to get on the street to barely survive.
It's truly sad that housing a prisoner is a,big money making scam,and yes it needs to be stooped,I am not saying innmates by any means should have luxury,but I am saying the system needs to be revamped,it's corrupt!
We all know black people get longer sentences for things and some for dumb stuff. I had a friend who son had a speeding ticket in South Carolina. Went back down to either fight the ticket or pay it. And the judge took one look at a black kid and gave him 5 days in jail for a speeding ticket. His mother was there with him had to drive back to maryland by herself then go back and get him. Oh it was fun and games they didn't give him a record or anything so what was that about. I never heard of such I would of sued got me lawyer they would of paid for my travel, gas and everthing. Ridiculous. The south is the south so the moral of this story if you black just mail the dam money back.
Peter H. Baisley China executes roughly around 2000 prisoners annually. Not enough to make up the difference. So much for your "argument."