{"id":7682,"date":"2018-07-24T11:29:32","date_gmt":"2018-07-24T15:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=7682"},"modified":"2022-02-08T15:48:54","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T20:48:54","slug":"no-cost-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/24\/no-cost-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"How to spot the hidden costs in a &#8220;no-cost&#8221; tablet contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If someone offered you a free computer, you&#8217;d rightly be suspicious that there were strings attached. So when private companies offer <b>&#8220;free&#8221; tablets<\/b> to incarcerated people, politicians are understandably skeptical, looking for hidden costs to the state.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"pullquote alignwith1024images\" title=\"What would motivate a company to give away 52,000 tablet computers for free?\"><\/span>But in their quest for an answer, politicians will often fail, as we saw in New York State earlier this year. Private company JPay signed a <a href=\"\/\/static.prisonpolicy.org\/scans\/JPay_NYDOCCS_inmatekiosks_piggybackcontract.pdf\">contract<\/a> with the New York Department of Corrections to give free tablets to 52,000 incarcerated people. Facing questions from legislators, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.democratandchronicle.com\/story\/news\/politics\/albany\/2018\/01\/31\/new-york-prisoners-get-free-tablet-computers\/1085620001\/\">the department insisted<\/a> &#8211; truthfully &#8211; that <b>taxpayers wouldn&#8217;t pay a dime<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>Legislators dropped the issue without asking the bigger question: What would motivate a company to give away 52,000 tablet computers for free?<\/p>\n<p>We filed a public records request, and got a more complete answer: The 52,000 &#8220;free&#8221; tablets are part of a package deal (or &#8220;bundled contract&#8221;) of several JPay services that <b>gouge incarcerated people and their families.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/133196677@N04\/42729679625\/in\/dateposted-public\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.prisonpolicy.org\/images\/tabletgraphic_textured.jpg\" alt=\"Graphic explaining how much money 'free' tablets actually cost incarcerated people.\" width=\"\" height=\"\" class=\"featureimage1024\" style=\"margin-top:18px; margin-bottom:18px\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The contract contains <b>virtually every exploitative trick<\/b> we&#8217;ve <a href=\"\/blog\/2017\/07\/06\/tablets\/\">documented in the past several years<\/a>, including:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list\">\n<li><a href=\"\/blog\/2017\/01\/18\/money-transfer\/\">Taking over the state prisons&#8217; banking system<\/a>, so they can add fees for services like depositing money. Transferring just $10 to a loved one&#8217;s account in a New York state prison will soon cost between $3.15 and $4.15.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/messaging\/\">Selling $0.35 &#8220;stamps&#8221;<\/a> for a product they have the nerve to call email. (We all have a love\/hate relationship with our inboxes, but calling prison messaging email is not fair to email.)<\/li>\n<li>Providing refunds to incarcerated people when they are released, not in a check, but via a <a href=\"\/releasecards\/\">pre-paid debit card rife with fees<\/a> &#8211; such as monthly &#8220;service&#8221; fees, fees for checking your account balance, or automatic fines for inactivity. (You can request a paper check instead &#8211; for $10.)<\/li>\n<li>Offering video chats at <a href=\"\/visitation\/\">$9 for every 30 minutes<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"\/reports\/commissary.html\">Charging above-market prices<\/a> for media, such as music and e-books.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These provisions explain how JPay expects to make <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorkupstate.com\/news\/2018\/02\/company_giving_tablets_to_ny_inmates_expects_to_get_9m_from_inmates_over_5_years.html\">almost $9 million in five years<\/a> from a contract that is free to the state: by selling profitable, fee-laden services against &#8220;complimentary&#8221; products like tablets.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"pullquote alignwith1024images\" title=\"You don't need an advanced degree to find the hidden costs in New York's 'no-cost' contract.\"><\/span>New York state legislators never bothered to solve this mystery, but it&#8217;s ironic how close some of them got. Take Republican Assemblyman Steve Hawley, who demanded: &#8220;If it&#8217;s this easy to encourage vendors to provide free tablets to inmates, why aren&#8217;t they being provided to our students?&#8221; The answer, as columnist Erica Bryant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.democratandchronicle.com\/story\/news\/2018\/02\/03\/prisoner-inmates-free-tablets-new-york-state-department-corrections-community-supervision\/300496002\/\">points out<\/a>, is that students would never <b>purchase a fake &#8220;stamp&#8221;<\/b> to send an email to their parents.<\/p>\n<p>Companies like JPay are offering &#8220;free&#8221; tablet programs to a growing number of states, and legislators should approach these offers with caution. You don&#8217;t need an advanced degree to find the <b>hidden costs<\/b> in New York&#8217;s &#8220;no-cost&#8221; contract. The trick is looking not only at taxpayer costs, but also at the exploitation of incarcerated people and their families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s no such thing as a free lunch &#8211; or a free tablet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,1],"tags":[56,57,65],"coauthors":[46,11],"class_list":["post-7682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-briefings","category-uncategorized","tag-communication","tag-exploitation","tag-tablets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7682"}],"version-history":[{"count":48,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13200,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7682\/revisions\/13200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7682"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}