I Hate J-Pay

03/30/2016

Prison calls, processing money sent to prisoners; everyone wants to make a profit off of the impoverished families with loved ones in prison.

One phone call at a time, American law enforcement agencies are making billions off the families of prisoners to pay for everything from new jails to police cruisers.

05/06/2015

JPay is moving to privatize communications between families and their loved ones behind bars, including video visits and email. While they charge high fees, there is a hidden cost: JPay becomes an owner of anything it transmits. Your letters, art, whatever: if you send it via JPay, they own it, can reproduce it, sell it, profit from it, without your permission and without paying you a cent.

Update: after a slew of negative postings on social media, JPay has changed its policy. It no longer will assert ownership of family communications?

JPay, a company that provides digital communications systems to corrections facilities in at least 19 states, is charging inmates and their families an unusual fee to stay in touch: the intellectual property rights to everything sent through its network.

04/21/2015

America has figured out another way to suck money from prisoners. Is anyone under the delusion that this will do anything but ensure that more people return to prison--either because they have less money, because they walk out of prison having just suffered one last insult, or some combination.

Unlike consumer debit cards, prison-issued cards are unregulated and subject to exorbitant fees

09/29/2014

For prisoners to create meaningful personal change and become an asset to society upon release strong family relationship ties are needed. JPAY charges and outrageous fees that destroys the prisoners attempts to write letters to loved ones and family members .JPAY interferes with everything that saves society from the burden of re-incarceration, thus I HATE JPAY!

06/27/2014

Front page New York Times article slams profiteering by JPay: high fees for sending money orders to prisoners; and now delivering MP3's.

What the article missed is that these high fees are being used by prisons to subsidize (and privatize) their operations, including vital security functions. As part of the deal with prison officials which allow JPay to charge such high fees, JPay is required to provide alleged "gang intelligence" to prison officials--based on analyses of call patterns, people calling multiple prisoners, etc. the accuracy and usefulness of such "intelligence" is highly questionable. The fact that family members are forced to pay for this "service" is outrageous.

The jails and prisons get commissions from phone and financial companies, which then charge very high rates to inmates who have no other choices.

05/22/2014

J-Pay isn't the only injustice found in prisons.

In solitary, a woman's attacker can closely watch her sleep, use the toilet, or undress.