As new technology emerges and inmates’ collect and prepaid telephone calls become less profitable, companies are looking to other communication services to increase profit, Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) reported.
“The promise of these new services is often tempered by a relentless focus on turning incarcerated people and their families into revenue streams for both private and public coffers,” PPI reported.
According to PPI, traditional communications with inmates are through in-person visits, the postal service and by telephone. However, electronic messaging such as email is slowly beginning to appear in lockup facilities.
“Correctional facilities that offer electronic messaging do so through private for-profit contractors,” PPI said in its report, “You’ve Got Mail,” by Stephen Raher. “Electronic messaging is usually offered to facilities as an optional add-on feature, bundled with other services.”
Some industry leaders that provide inmate calling services (ICS) and electronic messaging such as Global Tel*Link, Securus, and Telmate are currently involved in a lawsuit where they are attempting to undo recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules on prison.
PPI reported many ICS providers are now offering other services as a strategy to diversify their sources of revenue. “At the moment, voice telephone is no longer the lucrative business enterprise it has been in the past, and if the ICS providers are unsuccessful in their litigation against the FCC, sky-high profits for phone service are unlikely to return.”
Twelve percent of JPay’s total corporate revenue ($8.5 million) came from messaging contracts in 2014, it was reported. The contracts extended to half a million inmates in 17 prison.
According to PPI, the electronic messaging business likely has many of the same “perverse pricing dynamics” that caused the FCC to impose price caps on jail and prison telephone rates.
A noted benefit of electronic messaging, according to PPI, is that it can provide timely communication between inmates and their families when compared to postal mail, and it can decrease the work load in prison mailrooms.
Noting those benefits, PPI also noted potential drawbacks: “Electronic messaging is not a substitute for postal mail. Despite the potential benefits of electronic messaging, it is not an adequate replacement for traditional mail.”
The report said accessibility to the free world would be limited because there are those who are not comfortable using computers, and the method for inmates to access the technology oftentimes is “not conducive to thoughtful and meaningful communication” due in large part to the “rough” environment in common areas of jails and prisons, unlike writing on paper in relatively quiet areas.
Electronic messaging also holds two kinds of data: personal, such as names, addresses and payment cards, and the content of the messages transmitted between each user. “This information is subject to a mixture of laws and contracts, some of which are poorly written,” PPI reported. “Unfortunately, electronic messaging contracts are often set up so that correspondents relinquish some or all of their intellectual property rights.”
It was reported that some ICS providers turn down any protection of privileged messages that are transmitted through their systems, while others provide special service to attorneys, where ostensibly privileged communication is honored.
The FCC has already noted there “is little dispute that the ICS market is a prime example of market failure” and that “consumer protection should ideally come from financially disinterested oversight bodies like legislatures or regulatory agencies,” PPI reported.
Peter Wagner, PPI’s executive director and co-founder, said the report “finds that the product available to incarcerated people and their families actually has very little in common with mainstream email.”
