Posts in Access to Outside World
Florida inmates spent $11.3 million on MP3s. Now prisons are taking the players.

"For the last seven years, inmates have stocked the libraries of their personal MP3 players with $2 downloads. Come January, they’ll be forced to hand it all over because the Florida Department of Corrections signed a new deal with a competing company."

Florida Times-Union

August 8, 2018

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Ankle Monitors Aren't Humane. They're Another Kind of Jail.

"But those who have lived under this high-tech tether—including the two of us—see it differently. For many, electronic monitoring equals incarceration by another name. It is a shackle, rather than a bracelet. The rules for wearing a monitor are far more restrictive than most people realize. Most devices today have GPS tracking, recording every movement and potentially eroding rights in ways you can’t imagine."

Wired

August 4, 2018

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How Activists Convinced New York City to Stop Profiting Off Prisoners' Phone Calls

"Last week, the City Council passed a law that will make all calls in and out of city jails free. Once signed into law by the mayor, the legislation will be the first of its kind in the country. The prison phone industry has grown to a $1.2 billion a year business, mostly run by private companies that can charge as much as $1.22 a minute."

The Appeal

July 26, 2018

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Another jail eliminates in-person visits and adopts 50-cent-a-minute video visitation

"The Northwest Arkansas Democrat reports on the upcoming launchof a remote video visitation system in Benton County, Arkansas, that will cost 50 cents a minute in 15-minute increments. The jail will no longer allow in-person visits, the only free way to visit inmates for those who are not attorneys."

American Bar Association Journal

July 24, 2018

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Lawsuits Filed, Renewed Push to Block Cell Phones After Deadly South Carolina Prison Riot

"In the two months following an April 15, 2018 riot at the Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, South Carolina that left seven prisoners dead and at least 22 injured, the state’s Department of Corrections (DOC) has renewed its push to get the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve jamming contraband cell phones in prisons and jails. Additionally, several prisoners who were wounded during the riot have filed lawsuits alleging that staff at the facility failed to protect them from foreseeable violence."

Prison Legal News

July 1, 2018

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They’re Out of Prison. Can They Stay Out of the Hospital? Image

"There is some evidence that the program helps people stay out of emergency rooms and hospitals: A study in the American Journal of Public Health of 200 chronically ill former inmates in San Francisco, half assigned to a Transitions clinic and half to a primary care program, found that the Transitions patients’ use of emergency rooms was 50 percent lower."

New York Times

May 29, 2018

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