whether any of those items were hidden inside a book

April 10, 2019 1:27 PM

Corrections officials’ claims of contraband in used books mailed to Washington inmates don’t add up [The Seattle Times] "Last week, corrections officials faced a backlash after banning nonprofit groups from mailing used books to prisoners. This week, their math is raising eyebrows. In defending the ban, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) said last week it was a necessary step to tamp down on contraband that ended up in inmates’ hands."
posted by readinghippo (20 comments total)

And More jails replace in-person visits with awful video chat products -- "Video visitation" services cost as much as 50 cents per minute. (Timothy B. Lee for Ars Technica, April 8, 2019)

After April 15, inmates at the Adult Detention Center in Lowndes County, Mississippi will no longer be allowed (The Dispatch, Columbus and Starkville, Mississippi) to visit with family members face to face. Newton County, Missouri, implemented an in-person visitor ban last month (The Joplin Globe). The Allen County Jail in Indiana phased out (WPTA21.com, Fort Wayne, Indiana) in-person visits earlier this year.

All three changes are part of a nationwide trend toward "video visitation" services. Instead of seeing their loved ones face to face, inmates are increasingly limited to talking to them through video terminals. Most jails give family members a choice between using video terminals at the jail—which are free—or paying fees to make calls from home using a PC or mobile device.

Even some advocates of the change admit that it has downsides for inmates and their families. Ryan Rickert, jail administrator at the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center, acknowledged to The Commercial Dispatch that inmates were disappointed they wouldn't get to see family members anymore. Advocates of this approach point to an upside for families: they can now make video calls to loved ones from home instead of having to physically travel to the jail.

These services are ludicrously expensive. Video calls cost 40¢ per minute in Newton County, 50¢ per minute in Lowndes County, and $10 per call in Allen County. Outside of prison, of course, video calls on Skype or FaceTime are free.

These "visitation" services are also noticeably inferior to mainstream video calling apps. When I was working on a story (Ars Technica) about the video visitation trend last year, I wanted to try the technology out for myself. So I called inmate Justin Harker at the Knox County Jail in Tennessee. As I wrote at the time, the video was grainy and jerky, periodically freezing up altogether. The call cost me 19¢ per minute.

It's like the prison-industrial complex sees inmates as potential income, not individuals with (limited) rights.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:43 PM on April 10, 2019 [16 favorites]

Okay, so we have proof now that this move was not made for the purpose of reducing contraband smuggling. The Washington DOC has lied and mislead the public on this matter, that is undeniable now. What I don't understand is their motivation. Seems like most or all of the books were provided without costing the prisons anything? Presumably profit is still the motivation, I just don't know who here makes money or how it saves the prison money.

I can see it if they made a program to sell donated books, or this makes sense if they are planning a deal with some company to provide ebooks and tablets prisoners have to pay for and prisons get a deal for installing them.

Either way, when the two options for motivation are "willingness to do harm for the sake of disrespecting prisoners" or "willingness to do harm for the benefits for themselves," we've really all lost and should immediately take action at the laws and people who have enabled these deep failures.
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:51 PM on April 10, 2019 [4 favorites]

What I don't understand is their motivation.

Cruelty is the point.
posted by Etrigan at 1:56 PM on April 10, 2019 [45 favorites]

Can't even..... stopping books will stop contraband. Right.... what I really want to see is how they say that with a straight face...can't...
posted by sammyo at 1:57 PM on April 10, 2019

they are planning a deal with some company to provide ebooks and tablets prisoners have to pay for and prisons get a deal for installing them.

Grift is grift.
posted by zabuni at 2:03 PM on April 10, 2019 [12 favorites]

Cruelty is the point--there is also laziness and profit motivation. Processing, sorting, distributing and monitoring mail and possessions among the folks in the prison requires staff time, staff attention and staff competence. Easier and cheaper to just stop all books from coming in than it is to deal with them.

For-profit prisons, like so much in the modern USA are grotesque across the board.
posted by crush at 2:06 PM on April 10, 2019 [8 favorites]

And, on preview, of course, you can't profit from exclusive contracts with e-book providers, if you just let random charities send in books.
posted by crush at 2:07 PM on April 10, 2019 [9 favorites]

this makes sense if they are planning a deal with some company to provide ebooks and tablets prisoners have to pay for and prisons get a deal for installing them.

That's what happened in Pennsylvania.
posted by Secret Sparrow at 2:08 PM on April 10, 2019 [4 favorites]

books make people smart. books make people think for themselves. smart prisoners who think for themselves are a threat.

books are also, well, high-falutin'. It makes you feel bad, as a prison guard or as another cog in the imprisonment machine, to see those prisoners, those damn dirty prisoners, reading their smarty smart books. do they think they're better than us? I think they think they're better than us. And I think those damned do-gooder SJWs who send books to prisoners think they're better than us too.

therefore, we have to ban books.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 2:10 PM on April 10, 2019 [18 favorites]

~What I don't understand is their motivation.
~Cruelty is the point.

The cynic in me says (without a shred of evidence, of course) there was probably an outside contractor waiting in the wings to swoop-in with a “solution” to the “problem” with some sort of e-book program where prisoners would rent a cheap e-reader and then check-out e-books, all for a fee, of which the DOC would receive a cut. The whole “finding contraband in books” alarm would have been part of the marketing plan.

There once was a time when you could easily tell cynicism from reality. I miss those days...
posted by Thorzdad at 2:13 PM on April 10, 2019 [15 favorites]

Money is always a possible explanation. Another is incompetence, specifically my coinage of "the stupid people's syllogism," which I was disappointed to find is already known as "the politicians' syllogism". Once you've heard about it you will find it is so common.

But evil is a plausible motivation, too.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 2:45 PM on April 10, 2019 [5 favorites]

The information did not provide the titles of the books in question.

Too bad.
posted by clawsoon at 2:52 PM on April 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

The cynic in me says (without a shred of evidence, of course) there was probably an outside contractor waiting in the wings to swoop-in with a “solution” to the “problem” with some sort of e-book program where prisoners would rent a cheap e-reader and then check-out e-books, all for a fee, of which the DOC would receive a cut. The whole “finding contraband in books” alarm would have been part of the marketing plan.

Here's your evidence.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 4:23 PM on April 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

For-profit prisons, like so much in the modern USA are grotesque across the board.

This is about the WA Department of Corrections and the public prisons they run. Prisons don't have to be private to be making terrible decisions.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 5:15 PM on April 10, 2019 [3 favorites]

Seattle Times: Washington corrections officials reverse ban, will allow prisoners to get used books in the mail
posted by foxfirefey at 5:28 PM on April 10, 2019 [6 favorites]

question how hard would it be, do you think, to print up a version of “the new jim crow” with covers and maybe chapter headings that make it look like (for example) some sort of generic self-help book?
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:54 PM on April 10, 2019 [1 favorite]

abolish prisons
posted by Gymnopedist at 7:01 PM on April 10, 2019 [2 favorites]

I have been a volunteer with Seattle Books to Prisoners for over 35 (!) years. I have scrounged books, begged for money for postage, opened and read letters from prisoners, tried to find books in our piles of donated books that match requests, and wrapped and addressed packages of books. Thousands of books to hundreds and hundreds of people.

The SINGLE MOST REQUESTED BOOK, year after year, is a paperback dictionary. Paperback because most prisons won't allow hardbacks that might be used as weapons. A dictionary because these men (and women) are so hungry, in their hearts and minds, for ideas. For words. In The Authobiography of Malcolm X he writes about reading a dictionary from front to back, and how that opened the world to him.

We are so used to reading, but education in our country is so haphazard, and so unavailable to so many. We don't even realize how many people are shut out. When you read the attempts to request books, it will break your heart. This is not an opinion to share on social media. This is real people whose lives can be changed by *books.*

Seattle Books To Prisoners and Left Bank Books in Seattle have been doing this since the 1970s. There are programs all over the country -- maybe near you.

(If you're interested in more details, please MeMail me)
posted by kestralwing at 7:10 PM on April 10, 2019 [31 favorites]

Just so we're all on the same page, pretty much all jail contraband is brought in by the guards (drugs, cellphones, etc). But one thing guards aren't so keen on bringing in are weapons, which is why prisoners gotta make their shivs out of toothbrushes and razor blades.

Prison contraband, like most prison problems, is largely the fault of the prison staff and management.
posted by ryanrs at 12:40 AM on April 11, 2019 [4 favorites]

Yes, AOK, thanks for the correction.
posted by crush at 9:24 AM on April 11, 2019