First it was, if you make prison calls free, the vendors will pull all their phones out of the walls. Now it's, if you make calls free, we need millions more for increased monitoring costs. These are industry lobbying points to block efforts to make prison calls free. 🧵 Predatory prison telecoms charge high rates for calls and use the concept of security to justify them. Yet, their rates vary dramatically from one jurisdiction to another. Why? Not because their services wildly differ, but because some states are better at negotiating.

THREAD. Predatory prison telecom Securus has just defaulted on over $1 BILLION in debt. After years of preying on incarcerated people and their families, driving many into debt, Securus can't pay its own. Here's the story about how advocacy made this happen.

https://twitter.com/WorthRises/status/1775889114468090276

Securus, owned by Platinum Equity, and its competitor ViaPath (fka GTL) hold 80% of the prison telecom market. Their duopoly allows them to charge egregious rates: $8.25 for a 15-min phone call, $15 for a 25-min video call, and $0.50 for an "email."

Once upon a time, there was a prison telecom named Global Tel Link. It got bad press for exploiting incarcerated people + their families, so it changed its name to @ViaPathTech. Unable to shake its image, private equity owner, American Securities, tried to sell it and failed. 🧵 Global Tel Link is one of the nation's two largest prison telcoms. It is consistently admonished by families, advocates, legislators, and others for charging egregious rates for its subpar communications services: phone calls, video calls, text messages.

https://twitter.com/WorthRises/status/1443611643003424770?s=20

There are initiatives to abolish slavery on ballots around the country today. Yes, we're still working to abolish slavery because of an exception in the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But some are voting no due to misinformation.

A civics lesson is in order. (THREAD) This is specifically at issue in Louisiana, where efforts to end slavery are seriously in peril. Some, like the original sponsor who has now abandoned the bill, advocates, and thousands of incarcerated people in his state, have argued that the language on the ballot is confusing.

Recently, @nysfocus reported on NYC's history with predatory jail vendor @JPay_com. Now, let me tell you a disappointing story about NYC's investment relationship with JPay & its parent corps that even progressive Comptroller @BradLander hasn't dropped. 🧵
nysfocus.com/2022/10/21/new… To start, JPay was founded by Ryan Shapiro (currently facing insider trading charges) as a costly prison & jail money transfer vendor. Over the yrs it grew to also sell tablets, tablet-based services, and debit release cards using predatory practices. nytimes.com/2021/10/19/bus…

THIS WEEKEND, outgoing @MassGovernor @CharlieBakerMA killed a bill, 3 years in the works, that would've connected thousands of MA families because the legislature blocked him from expanding pretrial detention. Only a special session can save the bill now. Here's what happened. 👇 Context first. Families pay egregious call rates to speak to incarcerated loved ones. These rates, which run up to $0.14 per minute in MA, help drive 1 in 3 families dealing with incarceration into debt. And 87% of those who are incarcerated are women.

As a multiple rape survivor, let me say that exiling ppl who have caused sexual harm is counterproductive.

81% of women, 43% of men, and many who are GNC have experienced sexual harm. We must stop pretending there’s just 1 or 2 ppl causing this harm. It’s the ppl we love. 🧵

https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1503720979792646148

Of all violence, sexual harm is perhaps what we should be talking about the most because it's incredibly common but also the most taboo and underreported -- and that's not a coincidence. We can't fix something that we don't talk about -- it isn't helping victims, it's hurting us.

$Prison 11: @SCRAMsystems

We wrap up our foray into e-carceration with the leading manufacturer and distributor of electronic monitors, SCRAM Systems. Its monitors have caused those forced to wear them grave health issues. 🧵

(Pictures included with permission, TRIGGER WARNING) SCRAM started in alcohol monitoring in 2003. Over the next decade, it worked with legislators to include its "Continuous Alcohol Monitoring" in DUI laws across the country and adoption quickly grew. In 2010, SCRAM expanded into house arrest and broader correctional monitoring.

$Prison 10: @TrackGroupInc

Track Group (founded as SecureAlert in 2007 and rebranded in 2014) is yet another major player in e-carceration. The IL-based, publicly traded corp reported a record $40 million in revenue in 2021. I won't recount the travesties that this corp imposes on people on its electronic monitors, they're the same as those we've already discussed with BI, Attenti, STOP, and Sentinel.
nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…

$Prison 9: Satellite Tracking of People (STOP) owned by @PlatinumEquity

Meet e-carerator STOP, another major electronic monitoring corp that contracts with over 700 law enforcement agencies in 43 states. In 2020, STOP brought in $34M in revenue, and likely even more in 2021. STOP was founded in 2004 and acquired by prison telecom giant @SecurusTech (the subject of a future thread) in 2013 for an undisclosed amount. Then, in 2017, Securus was acquired by @PlatinumEquity, which is owned by @DetroitPistons owner @TomGores.

$Prison 8: Sentinel Offender Services owned by Bison Capital

CA-based Sentinel Offender Services is another major electronic monitoring corp and the proud pioneer of the "offender-funded" model that allows law enforcement to pass the cost of e-carceration onto people it tracks. So, what is the financial cost of e-carceration? It can vary widely agency to agency, ranging from no cost to hundreds of dollars per month.

issuu.com/gwlawpubs/docs…

$Prison 7: @AttentiUS owned by @apax_partners

Meet e-carcerator Attenti, an Israeli-based corp that prides itself on being "the global leader in electronic monitoring for over 25 yrs." Attenti does electronic monitoring in over 30 countries, tracking over 200,000 people. Founded in 1994, Attenti has changed hands several times. Most recently, in 2017, major conglomerate @3M sold Attenti at a loss to private equity firm @apax_partners for $200 million. 3M had bought the corp in 2010 for $230 million.
haaretz.com/israel-news/bu…

$Prison 6: BI Incorporated

Transitioning from private prisons, let's talk about e-carceration (aka electronic monitoring). BI, a subsidiary of private prison giant @GEOGroup, is now the nation's largest e-carcerator with 155,000 people on their monitors. As their business falls out of public favor, private prisons have diversified their revenue streams into community corrections. GEO Group made a specific bet and major investment in e-carceration when it acquired CO-based BI in 2011 for $415M in cash.
businesswire.com/news/home/2011…

$Prison 5: @AkimaGlobal Services (AGS)

This is dark. The next private prison corp we'll look at is a subsidiary of Akima, an Alaska Native Corp dedicated to creating "a long-lived asset for our Iñupiat shareholders." Akima is #63 on Bloomberg's top federal contractors list. With 8,000 employees, Akima is actually a portfolio of 8(a) companies. These are companies that qualify as small disadvantaged businesses. The federal government aims to award at least 5% of all federal contracting dollars to 8(a) companies.

akima.com/our-company/

$Prison 4: LaSalle Corrections

Meet the nation's 4th largest private prison operator. These names are likely becoming less and less familiar, but no less harmful. Once a nursing home operator, LaSalle now operates private prisons in Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, and Arizona. LaSalle has made plenty of headlines for the deplorable conditions in its jails, prisons, and detention centers, but none quite as horrific as the stories out of the Irwin County Detention Center that led ICE to remove all the people it detained there.
ajc.com/news/all-ice-d…

$Prison 3: @MTC_Trains

MTC is the 3rd largest private prison corp in the US, generating roughly $450M annually from domestic operations (about half of its global revenue). Unlike CoreCivic and GEO Group, MTC is not publicly traded, but still a major player with 8,000 employees. MTC opened its doors in 1981 running job training programs, and a substantial part of its business remains the management of Jobs Corps sites.

But in 1987, it began operating corrections and immigration detention facilities. Today, it also provides corrections medical services.

$Prison 2: @GEOGroup

Next up is GEO Group, the nation's largest private prison corp, which rakes in over $2.4Bn in annual revenues, again half coming from fed contracts. It's headquartered in Florida and once tried to buy the naming rights to @FloridaAtlantic's stadium for $6M. GEO got its start in 1984 with a fed contract for immigration detention, much like CoreCivic.

In 1996, the corp helped push an amendment to Biden's infamous crime bill that would allow states to use federal funds for prison construction to build private prisons.

$Prison 1: @CoreCivic

Founded in 1983, CoreCivic is the nation's oldest private prison corp. It generates nearly $2Bn in revenue each year with over half coming from federal contracts despite claims from the Biden admin that it has rolled back private prison use. 🧵 CoreCivic founder Tom Beasley, fmr Chairman of TN GOP, once said, "You just sell [prisons] like you were selling cars or real estate or hamburgers."

Other founders incl Rob Crants, Beasley's college roommate & Don Hutto, fmr warden who used prison labor on his family plantation.

Who is responsible for digitizing prison mail, one of the most dehumanizing recent corrections innovations?

This guy, Jon Logan, CEO of Smart Communications, who flaunts his new wealth w obnoxious suits, cars, and yachts.

What does he say to those he harms for profit? Thank you For those unfamiliar with the abusive trend of digitized mail that has been replacing traditional mail in prisons and jails, families are now required to send mail to vendors like Smart Communications to be photocopied. Photocopies are delivered to their incarcerated loved ones.

I'm tired of hearing sheriffs fear monger to protect their funds. Making prison and jail communication free doesn’t threaten public safety, it improves it.

Been meaning to do this for a while, but this misguided op-ed really necessitates it. THREAD 👇
pilotonline.com/opinion/column… Making communication free doesn't interfere with any security and surveillance features. Not a single city or state that has moved to free prison or jail calls has stopped recording or monitoring calls. They have simply realized that it is their responsibility to fund. /1

This week we escalated our campaign against prison profiteer @TomGores, demanding the @NBA force the sale of his @DetroitPistons. Now, I'm fielding Qs about his "commitment to reform." Having spent 10 mos in conversation with Tom and his team, let me put this idea to rest. THREAD When his name first hit media re: prison telecom corp Securus, Tom claimed he didn’t know it had so many ethical issues. This could worry investors who expect Platinum to diligence investments—but Tom knew. And his brother Alec, owned Securus’ main competitor, GTL, until 2009. /2