Capitalism at its most disgusting: parasitic private providers.
For $109.00 you can send your loved one behind bars a snack package with chips and some ramen.
I’m working on a story about a Hell jail in Arkansas. I’ve been messaging the men there using a nifty new service called JailATM. At least they outright say it!
Because they charge 50 cents to send a message. And they charge 50 cents to read the response. For 99 cents, you can buy an hour of access to a tablet with occasional poor access to the internet. I’m using the service on the dime of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, but imagine if you had a loved one in prison?
“Christmas was pretty great,” one of the men, detained pre-trial on drug charges, told me. “I got to talk to my kids for two minutes and they said they loved and missed me.”
Ghoulish private prisons get most of the attention. But literally every public detention facility in the U.S. uses parasitic private providers for everything from medical care to communications to access to items that make prison slightly more tolerable, like a commissary where you can buy luxury indulgences like crackers and aspirin. And then there are the leaches atop the parasites, exploiting families’ panic at the suffering and deprivation their kids or parents are experiencing behind bars pre-trial.
“Yum! Yum!” reads the ad copy on the website of iCare, a service that lets families send food packages to people behind bars. “iCare is a powerful tool for justice-involved individuals to remain connected to their family and friends,” they write. “A support system has been shown to help improve outcomes when incarcerated individuals return to the community and iCare is here to help.”
“We understand the importance of a great snacking experience in this environment, so our focus is to provide a wide selection of familiar, brand name products and great-tasting foods that offer the comfort of home,” they continue. “Our offering features a wide range of items and price points so there is something for everyone and every budget.”
How honorable.
The package “Backyard BBQ” contains 75 items. Things like chips, ramen, two pop tarts. The cost of these things ranges from 25 cents to a dollar. The package costs $109.00 pre-tax.
The Deluxe, comprised of similar items, as well as different flavors of ramen and a packet of mayonnaise, costs $97. But hey, according to iCare: “Stuffed full of every kind of salty, spicy, savory, and sweet snack imaginable, this gift bag gives new meaning to the word deluxe.”
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