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HOW PRISON WRITERS STRUGGLE TO BE HEARD
Sky-high email and phone costs, fear of retaliation by prison staff, and isolation create roadblocks for incarcerated people to share their experience and join a growing national conversation on reforming the criminal legal system.
Most people in prison pay for virtually every form of communication they have access to.
For those lucky enough to have email, there is a cost connected to each correspondence. Where we are, in Washington state, people in prison can use the technology service JPay to send monitored emails and transfer money. Qualifying prisoners can purchase a personal JPay tablet at about $139, and prisoners must purchase “e-stamps” to send messages. Stamps cost 17 to 33 cents each, though the price can be higher in other states.
This may not sound like much, but if you consider the fact that most prisoners in Washington state make only 42 cents per hour at prison jobs, sending a message home through JPay can represent nearly 40 percent of an hour’s labor. For a person on the streets making $20 an hour, that would be the equivalent of $8 each time they sent an email or text. The tablet is the equivalent of over 330 hours of prison labor.
Phone calls are even worse. A local 20-minute phone call from a prison in Washington state costs around $2.50 or nearly six hours of prison labor, though excessive call costs are a national issue. Last year, a federal judge in New Jersey approved a $25 million settlement after prisoners in the state sued GTL, a phone service provider, for inflated costs.
For prisoners who are dependent on communicating using paper or a typewriter, costs can get outrageously high. Those confined in Washington are only allowed to purchase from one vendor, Union Supply, when ordering supplies, meaning they have no choice over what they pay. A typewriter from Union Supply costs over $300 and requires a $15 deposit. Supporting supplies such as correctable ribbons are $12.95 each; correction tape is $17.55 for a six-pack, and a packet of 100 sheets of typing paper is $1.71. Getting set up with a typewriter and supplies to write requires a prisoner to spend around $350 or 833 hours of prison labor. If a person in prison used a ribbon, one correction tape, and a packet of paper each month, they would need $17.58 every month. That is a third of a prisoner’s monthly paycheck in Washington state.
The outrageous cost of being heard has a chilling effect. People simply can’t afford to speak. They are silenced through overpriced, unobtainable, outdated technology.