{"id":128204,"date":"2015-10-01T16:18:43","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T22:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/01\/who-cares-theyre-only-crooks-right.html"},"modified":"2015-11-16T09:38:53","modified_gmt":"2015-11-16T16:38:53","slug":"who-cares-theyre-only-crooks-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/01\/who-cares-theyre-only-crooks-right.html","title":{"rendered":""Who cares, they're only crooks, right?""},"content":{"rendered":"

One key element in reducing recidivism by imprisoned criminals is maintaining contact between them and their families on the outside. It makes sense and it's been demonstrated in studies.<\/p>\n

Which makes price gouging by phone concessionaires at jails and prisons not only ethically suspect, but societally damaging.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, it looks like the FCC is going to crack down on the practice — though that has some smaller jails worried.<\/p>\n

'Jails and prisons around the country have in recent years become financially reliant on revenue received from prison phone companies, which pay millions of dollars in concession fees, called commissions, to win exclusive contracts. High concession fees drive up the cost of phone calls because the companies say they must try to recover their investment.'<\/i><\/p>\n

Another demonstration of how privatizing prisons or prison functions, not to mention scrimping on budgets so that jails are "financially reliant" on concession fees for phones, fergoshsakes, is not the way to run a public service.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nPrison phone companies charging “endless” fees to families of inmates<\/a><\/span>
\nFCC says it will put a stop to price gouging.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One key element in reducing recidivism by imprisoned criminals is maintaining contact between them and their families on the outside. It makes sense and it's been demonstrated in studies. Which makes price gouging by phone concessionaires at jails and prisons not only ethically suspect, but societally damaging. Fortunately, it looks like the FCC is going … Continue reading “"Who cares, they're only crooks, right?"”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,715,528],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-crime-punishment","category-economic-justice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":25501,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/17\/the-war-on-drugs-and-de-facto-jim-crow.html","url_meta":{"origin":128204,"position":0},"title":"The War on Drugs and de facto Jim Crow","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 17-Jan-12 5:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A quote from the story: \"Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control \u2014 in prison or jail, on probation or parole \u2014 than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. There are millions of African-Americans now cycling in and out of prisons and jails or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4504,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/08\/18\/if_you_cant_bea.html","url_meta":{"origin":128204,"position":1},"title":"If you can’t beat ’em, profit from ’em","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 18-Aug-03 2:37pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Surprise, surprise. After fighting tooth-and-nail to keep customers from being able to take their cell phone numbers with them when they go to a different carrier, some cell phone companies...","rel":"","context":"In "Media Moguls"","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12669,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/02\/28\/land_of_the_free_except_t.html","url_meta":{"origin":128204,"position":2},"title":"Land of the Free (except those behind bars)","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 28-Feb-08 8:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Over 1% of Americans are in prison. 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Because what can possibly go wrong with the government signs contracts with private prison companies and they get to decide how to meet their margins -- especially when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26652,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/23\/taint-funny-mcgee.html","url_meta":{"origin":128204,"position":4},"title":"'Tain't funny, McGee","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 23-Feb-12 9:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, we've all heard of the prison rape jokes. Heck, I've made them myself. There's something that is, on the surface, funny and appealing about the idea of some person who's committed some heinous crime being locked up for a \"mere\" prison sentence, only to find himself the \"girlfriend\" of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27489,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/20\/the-free-but-chained-market.html","url_meta":{"origin":128204,"position":5},"title":"The Free (but Chained) Market","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 20-Apr-12 12:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The return of the Gilded Age and cheap, chain-gang labor. It's the American Dream!\"These [private prison] companies can, in most states, lease factories in prisons or prisoners to work on the outside. All told, nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/images0-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com\/gadgets\/proxy?container=focus&gadget=a&resize_h=100&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.salon.com%2F2012%2F04%2Fchain_gang-150x150.png","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128863,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128204\/revisions\/128863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}