BPO Incarceration Centers

Or, Prison-as-a-Service

Hi, everyone! A bit of a gap in my posts, but I think this post will delve into the why and how.

I am incarcerated in a state prison that is not run by the state's department of corrections. Instead, this is one of a small handful of facilities here in the state that are run by a corporation!

It sets me thinking about business process outsourcing, something I have experience in, having spent time working for a few of those companies.

The thing to know is, there is a bidding process for a contract in business process outsourcing. I do not know how this process works for the prison, but I imagine a massive RFQ (request for quotation) follows the state putting out there that they need x number of inmates housed, that the contract is y years long, that the custody level of the inmates is q, and so on. Companies in the commercial business of running corrections facilities then throw a quote out there, stating they can run it for $m million per year plus whatever cost to build a facility, if needed.

Eventually, the state will go with a contractor -- it may not always be the up front cheapest, but when writing the checks, the state will justify it in some way.
Maybe it's this contractor has ready, highly trained staff who only need the state specific guidelines; nearest competitors require a year of training, missing the deadline start date, or no other contractor willing to comply with all or most of our contractual stipulations, or lower bidding contractor has recent history of RLUIPA violations.

(I'll nutshell RLUIPA here, my reader: it's the rules that protect peaceful displays and practices of religion in prison. Whether you may be of a faith or practice or not, I argue it important to protect someone else's right to practice their religious beliefs so long as it doesn't compromise safety, no matter the religion.)

Then we get into the PaaS aspects! We have to eat, have medicines and medical access, receive funds for commissary, and communicate with folks outside. Let's climb that tree:

Communications

Communications in American prisons and jails are frequently handled by just a few companies that offer perhaps the last bastion of collect call use in America. Every call I have had the opportunity to make has gone through GTL/GlobalTelLink.

My facility, a corporate run place, has opted to allow inmates to add a monetary balance to their phone account to make calls. I believe the going rate here is 9¢/min, always rounded up; haven't made calls to confirm, as using the phone is a poor option for a hard of hearing enby like me.
This differs in a positive manner from the state run facilities, where our loved ones have to add minutes to their phones individually, intentionally hamstringing our ability to communicate with the technically challenged.

We're in the 21st century; electronic communications exist!
I send and receive messages via a bodge that pretends it's email (while putting two fingers up at RFC 822, also known as the standards that govern the interoperability of electronic mail systems). Every message I send costs me 39¢, unless my people buy e-stamps for me in bulk.

For us, this is provided by a service called Jpay; this company is owned by Securus Technologies, and are providing us with tablets running their custom, security modified version of what appears to be AOSP "Nougat" 7.1.5 (minus things that would actually make it fully Android).
The tablets are free to us now as loaners; previously, they required a substantial purchase, which stratified prisoners: haves versus have-nots.
For us, these are our lifelines into the free world; it's more than saying "hi mom". It's how we can get news when we listen to the FM radio onboard, or listen to their poorly curated list of podcasts, pay exorbitantly for music that isn't available on the radio, or rent movies and TV shows if we have $2 to $8 to spare.

All of this comes as a cost to someone else: the state's prison system, in the case of the tablets, and the prison contractor in the phone's case here. Two contracts, two different terms, for two prison services.
Both are calculating these to be profit centers (and they are), by sole dint of inmate needs. We need communications, and even a movie is wrapped in that.

Food

Speak of need, and the stomach will follow. We must eat, and as wards of the state, the state must provide that essential. While inmate labor is always used to provide the final product that ends up on our trays, the food comes to us from, you guessed it, contracted food service providers.
In our private prison camp, that is handled by a company called Trinity. In state-run facilities, those services are rendered by Aramark. Yes, that Aramark, for the one reader who just had a question mark float over their head.

Food is supposed to be evaluated by a nutrition specialist, with menus created to keep inmates reasonably healthy, given our inability to say "Nah, I'm gonna go down the street to HealthyBurger, get the black bean and beet burger, with a side of carrot fries and the in-season blackberry cucumber iced water."
However, much of the contractor's price savings (that is, their profit potential) comes from meeting calorie goals as inexpensively as possible, which feels like one of the few targets set. This explains a lot of the bread inmates are served. In a previous post, I covered how much bread I receive as a diabetic.
A nutritionist who specializes in diabetes would likely set someone ablaze with colorful invective if they came and evaluated our trays... :)

Three meals per day must be provided, with special meals proffered to those whose faiths require special handling (see: Kosher, Halal certification), or medically therapeutic meal options given when necessary. That is a LOT of daily food, so to save 2.3¢ a tray adds up rapidly (about $46,000 a year for 1,850 inmates, dear reader)!

That's a picture you didn't have.

Medical as a Service

Imagine you're the lone doctor in a town of about 1,800 or 1,900 folks, with no-one else to take on patients once you're saturated. That is what the scenario can be in prison.

In this private prison camp, medical is handled by the contractor's medical department employees. In the state's prison camps, this is actually contracted out to the bidder that says they can do it for this price or that price.

Inmates are charged $5 to call upon the doctor for their needs, which leads to a lot of things going untreated. While medical will still see us if we don't have the money now, it still has to be paid at some point once we are due to be released. If Medical calls us, instead, there is no cost, so this doesn't inordinately drown people with chronic illnesses and conditions in medical debt.

But you can see where Medical is now incentivized to save costs where they can. This leads to inmates being given what may be considered inferior medical therapies to treat ongoing issues.
As example, a diabetic may have been on a two medicine therapy in the free world, comprised of empaglifozin and dulaglutide. One pill a day, one shot a week to manage their glucose numbers, protect their heart and kidneys, and suppress their appetite to keep everything in good condition.
Problem: Neither of those medicines have a generic or low cost formulation.
Know what does?
Insulin, glipizide, and metformin.
The inmate loses the multiple protective benefits of Jardiance and Trulicity, and gets to be poked by needles multiple times a day for insulin. They may be given a rack of metformin, told to take it twice a day, and that they "ain't getting [their] fancy designer drugs here; this prison!" [sic]
There is no component in either medicine that is as capable of protecting the heart. Insulin can overstimulate the appetite, which leads to weight gain and increasing need for more insulin. Metformin's most common side effect is diarrhoea, which isn't good in prison.

Never mind that diabetes isn't a one shoe fits all thing... but that's how medical goes behind the wires. In the name of the almighty dollar, Amen.

MSBs

Ah, money. We aren't exempt from its clutches here in prison. From making phone calls, to buying paper, stamps, pens, and envelopes, or bars of soap, packets of oatmeal, and instant coffee, we all have a monetary need.
However, cash is forbidden here, for good reasons (see also: extortion, among other subjects). We all wear or carry an ID card that is linked to our inmate trust fund, allowing us to buy those things.
That money has to arrive somehow, so in come the prison system's money service broker (yep, that's what MSB means). They get a cut of your deposit from the free world in the form of a transaction fee, whatever it may be, and we get what you're sending, minus any debts on our accounts (Medical strikes again!) that have us in arrears.

Here, we use a third party service that is far better than what the state facilities use, in my opinion: anyone may add funds for me, versus the rigmarole that the state puts people through just to be allowed to add cash. I can even have checks mailed to me and deposited here.

But these services know it's free money for them on multiple counts, between transaction fees, and the captivity of their audience: we don't have the luxury of just walking away from their pseudo-bank to a reputable credit union down the street, hah!

However, again, that's part and parcel of prison-as-a-service.

It's no longer just sitting behind bars, turning into a mushroom; it is a network of living parts that needs money and maintenance, people to maintain it, and people to use it.

You guys suck, I'm gonna call Xfinhuntimumcoxstrum!

I wrap with a components failure of our PaaS implementation last week: we had a really bad thunderstorm, which knocked out inmate internet connectivity. We couldn't check or send messages, or even access our purchased games and music on the tablet for 8 days. The phones worked, though.

We don't have the luxury of changing service providers here.

Cherish that, o free worlders, for it is a leverage of strength. :)

Be strong, be good to each other and yourselves, and if you're in a position to do so, reach out to a prison outreach service. Help them as they help us.

Thanks for reading. :)