Massachusetts becomes fifth state to make prison calls free

I once attended an internal presentation while working for the UK's Ministry of Justice.

A large number of contraband mobile phones had been confiscated, and a team performed some data analysis to see what they'd been used for.

The overwhelming conclusion was that the phones had been primarily used to keen in touch with family.

There's also a whole bunch of research that showed that maintaining ties with the outside world while incarcerated led to reduced rates of reoffending (and the inverse was also true - isolation led to increased rates).

Allowing free phone calls in and out of prisons makes a lot of sense both socially and economically.

There is no logic that a good thing should be free. In fact it should likely cost prisoners something if it is good for them. Just like breakfast is good for you but it is not free.

What about clean air

In the libertarian ideal, a clean ecosystem should be monetized to incentivize the production of value by those who think they need a clean ecosystem. In theory, we would all be richer for it.

A terrible theory. Business owners can increase profits by X% by polluting more, and they can just live in the clean air areas that have higher property values and make the poor live in the polluted areas. Weather patterns move pollution in specific directions.

Don't believe me? Look at industrial cities like Cleveland where the poor areas are concentrated phyiscally downwind of the factories, and the wealthy areas are either upstream on the West side or further away on the East side, where they built a private train for themselves that allowed them to be further from the city while keeping commuting distance. This line is now the RTA Blue/Green line, and if you do a street view of the line in Shaker Heights you'll see that it runs straight down a boulevard of period mansions.

The wealthy can avoid almost every negative externality they create:

Underfunded public transit in NYC? Just take a helicopter to work.

Too many people are poor and crime is high? Hire private security and live in a gated community.

The poor are mad at you every time you go out in public and have their pitchforks at the ready? Fly private, have your assistant pick up your coffee, dine out in a private room, spend time in places the poor can't afford to go like your yacht or Monaco.

In Science Fiction, they go as far as moving off-planet, like in Elysium.

If things that were good for society were profitable we'd be living in a Star Trek utopia by now.