Massachusetts becomes fifth state to make prison calls free

So although it is absurd, I have been in other prisons where the calls are dirt cheap but they have shit food, they dont give you ANYTHING and there isn't shit for opportunities. I understand that sometimes the profit they make off the calls might be going to things like quality of the food, etc. I know that this is almost never the case, but I do know that it is somewhat the case here.

Alas, the greater context here, and seemingly much of why they write, is that Maine seems to be the one a few rare states where they believe there's any hope of reform & rehabilitation. And even to get this context, it seemingly took Covid for them to be granted access to the knowledge & information to unlock & enable their journey & growth, for them to escape a foreboding dark prison fatalism. https://pthorpe92.github.io/intro/my-story/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38229231

This is unhumble as heck & just my own weird strange warped view, but I personally think there is a resounding screaming loud truth that access to FOSS is a civic virtue that can redeem lives & should be amplified accelerated & supported at all levels. Prisons, schools, & elsewhere: being able to personally entail ourselves into such great projects lifts the soul, gives us worthy efforts to motivate & work towards. FOSS invites us in to participate in the greater non-zero-sum aspects of humanity.

But that is good to hear about college. So much of my state to this day is still on the "hard on crime" narrative even though I'd bet my bottom dollar that over half the prisoners just need a detox session (or need to be released yesterday over weed charges). Some direction and education would help further and reduce recidivism.

That’s one part. The others are deterrence, incapacitation, retribution and restitution [1].

Letting prisoner’s work aids rehabilitation. Letting them earn further aids restitution.

[1] https://open.lib.umn.edu/criminallaw/chapter/1-5-the-purpose...

These things have a balance, though. If you're planning on letting people out of prison one day (i.e. if they don't have a life sentence)...

And it's punitive to the point that familial relations break and people lose what little support network they have and ability to live outside of prison...

You can expect they're going to show back right up where they started. In which case, by facilitating repeated recidivism, you've neutered deterrence, incapacitation and left them unable to make meaningful restitution.

> Retribution prevents future crime by removing the desire for personal avengement (in the form of assault, battery, and criminal homicide, for example) against the defendant. When victims or society discover that the defendant has been adequately punished for a crime, they achieve a certain satisfaction that our criminal procedure is working effectively, which enhances faith in law enforcement and our government.

And yet when victims and victim families are interviewed on this subject, most of them aren't terribly satisfied by criminals being "punished."

What they typically care about is that the person won't harm others, and that's where rehabilitation comes in.

Some cities in MA are prohibit companies they contract with from discriminating against those with criminal backgrounds. And before some smarmypants jumps on my back: there's verbiage about it only applying to those who will not be working sensitive positions. I'm not an expert but I believe it's things like unsupervised handling of money and working with vulnerable populations.

Actually sounds a little like those hackers that live in pod spaces in SF.

For one its possible to encourage good behaviour by threatening to take it away but also because a sense of purpose and achievement is important for a healthy mental state. That's true for incarcerated people as well and a stable population reduces enforcement costs and churn among the guard personal.

Concepts of justice are old. They tend to include these elements, though I’m open to seeing how others formalize its aims.

> when victims and victim families are interviewed on this subject, most of them aren't terribly satisfied by criminals being "punished."

Source needed. Also, retribution reduces not only victims taking the law into their own hands, but also the public.

Note that I am not saying every incarceration needs a retributive component. The American justice system is absolutely too retributive. But it’s an old institution [1] for good reason.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retributive_justice

- add credit card surcharges

- bill whole minutes

- no refunds for unused minutes when the service isn't needed.

And, it's not just phones. Similar treatment for email/telegram type services, commissary type items, books, music, etc. Some even deduct from these accounts for medical service visits.

The US incarceration system is a shit show.

edit: I see your blog post linked below by someone else. I'll read that!

I'm not sure this is true for society at large. There's zero chance that Elizabeth Holmes will pull off another Theranos, or that Sam Bankman-Fried will pull off another FTX. It's hard not to see their sentences as being entirely for retribution and deterrence (deterring others). And few if any comments here took issue with that.

Just, the combination of:

- Denying people the practical ability to contact their loved ones except by phone

- Charging a price that is very high compared to outside rates for this contact (prohibitively so)

- Paying prisoners a tiny fraction of outside rates, such that

- Only people who can depend upon money coming from outside can contact family

is both cruel and probably increases recidivism.

Drugs being illegal is batshit insane and literally keeps the cartels in business which destabilizes entire countries and kills way more people than having legal drugs.

Anyway thats a whole different conversation.

That being said theres this weird liberal trend to feel sympathy for murderers. And in my book if a person is a murderer or rapist or something, they need to be in a dungeon not a comfy prison with internet.

But for the bullshit you got in for Im glad you were able to find a good spot and make the best of the situation.

Hope you can get some sort if early release situation.

Also on a software devs salary you could bribe so many guards and inmates you would be king of that place.

Inmates see you coding all day? lol And they aren't that stupid, they know people working in the "computer business" make money.

Deterrence (fail) - 44% of criminals go to jail again.

Retribution (fail) - Not sure what the value of retribution is other than deterrance. See above.

Incapacitation - a substantial number of inmates commit crimes while in prison.

We need to find a better way.

if it's just going to a bank account somewhere though, whatever. keep your mouth shut, tell em you're getting $3.24/hr, and then go on a bender when you get out with all that saved up cash.

> Not sure what the value of retribution is other than deterrance

It's irrational. But it seems fundamental to human nature. If you remove deterrence, victims and those who identify with them--which in the modern world is increasingly the public--take justice into their own hands.

The 1984 subway shooting acquittal is one example [1]. Goetz shot four people in cold blood. He was obviously guilty. But the jury acquitted, because he was seen as acting justly. (The four kids "allegedly tried to rob him," and there was a lot of unpunished robbery in New York at the time.) The reaction was in excess of self protection. But the public bought into the vengeance narrative because the criminal justice system wasn't doing it for them.

Another example was Chesa Boudin refusing to prosecute someone who unintentionally killed a kid. He said it wouldon't bring the child back. Which is true. But that infuriated the victim's family. They wanted revenge. (They got it through the recall. But most families don't have recourse to the political system to sort things out peacefully.)

> substantial number of inmates commit crimes while in prison

Not on the public. But yes, we fail at this.

> We need to find a better way

I agree. I'm describing tenets of justice. We fail to do justice in America--we do not deter, we do not incapacitate and we certainly don't rehabilitate. We're okay with restitution and retribution, though it's a statistical versus comprehensive approach.

That doesn't undermine the theory, however, which has persisted for millenia and across cultures for good reasons.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_New_York_City_Subway_shoo...