BY Shane King
If a dog bites someone, people tend to ask why. Was the dog ill or wounded, abused, or protecting itself or others? If I suggested the dog won’t do that again if we put it in a cage and poke it with a stick for years most people would say it is incredibly cruel and it will make that dog even more dangerous. But if you say the equivalent about a human being most people seem to believe it’s a good idea.
The Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) is entrusted with keeping the public safe. Yet if you compare the social science on causes and effective solutions for crime and recidivism to the policies the WDOC has implemented since its founding in 1990, you’ll likely struggle to find policies more apt to increase crime and recidivism. That means more crime victims. Those are real people.
The consensus after decades of studies and data is that prisoners who maintain strong family and community ties during incarceration are less likely to commit new crimes or come back to prison after reentry.
An oft cited 1972 study of California parolees found that those who did not have strong family ties in prison were 6 times more likely to recidivate.¹ In 2011, the Minnesota Department of Corrections found that over 5 years those prisoners who received at least three visits while incarcerated were 13% less likely to commit new crimes and 25% less likely to come back to prison for violations of their parole. ² Other studies have shown that the more visits prisoners had, the less likely they were to recidivate. Visits have also been shown to reduce violence, misconduct and drug use inside jails and prisons. ³
This has led states like Connecticut, Colorado and California to pass legislation making communication between prisoners and their loved ones free.⁴ Even as most other agencies which imprison people in the U.S. have partnered with the notoriously exploitative telecom industry to extract and divvy up 1.4 billion dollars annually from prisoners and their families-families which tend to be some of the poorest.
The Wisconsin DOC finally lowered phone rates in 2018, from .12¢ to .06¢. per minute. The WDOC quickly moved to make up that revenue by making a virtual war on all remaining avenues of communication between prisoners and their loved ones: with drastic reductions in and barriers to visiting A 25% reduction in the number of phones-already too sparse to meet demand-threefold hikes in the price of “email” – already highly priced – and persistent 2 to 5 week delays in the delivery of mail.
The WDOC then contracted with a company who offered to restore communication between loved ones and their families, but for exorbitant fees. The WDOC takes a share of the profits for themselves in the form of profit-sharing. Call it a loved-ones tax. Call it extortion.
When I see a new memo on communications now my stomach churns. I wonder if this is the one that will place the simple joy of seeing the faces and hearing the voices of the people I love beyond my reach. We already feel the loss profoundly. It will take my savings eventually. It will take the savings of everyone who loves their family. Prisoners’ families will have to choose between meaningful contact and paying bills.
Love between prisoners and their families and friends is what is being exploited. And with no savings those people are hard pressed to get on their feet when they leave. Many more, who would have had a chance if the WDOC’s quest for monetary gain did not trump public safety, will just go back to crime.
VISITING
In March of 2020, a person could visit a prisoner at Fox Lake, where I’m currently serving a life sentence, anytime between 2:30 pm and 8:30 pm weekdays, 8:30 am to 2:30 pm on weekends. The visiting room accommodated at least 30 visits at a time. It was often near capacity. Visits were shut down when Covid-19 hit. They have been heavily reduced and restricted since they resumed to 3 time slots of 14 (42 total) visits per day which must be scheduled in advance.
I went from receiving 2 to 3 visits a month to 3 in 3 years. My family and friends say they love me but they can’t schedule a visit at a time when they can come because they work. Evidently they are not alone in that. The visiting room is almost never more than half full these days. This made sense when Covid outbreaks were common and there was no vaccine, but while Covid restrictions have been lifted nationwide, in the WDOC these restrictions are inexplicably still in effect. I asked Warden Michael Meisner when we would return to the pre-covid visitation policies. He said he didn’t see that happening. Ever. He cited drugs as one reason. When asked about the data showing increased recidivism and crime (as well as drug use, violence, and misbehavior in prisons) when ties with loved ones are restricted, he replied “It’s a delicate balance.” He was silent on whether he truly believed that is what he’d achieved. According to research offered by Worthrises (info@worthrises.org) 74% of agencies either scaled back or eliminated in-person visits as a condition of contracts with telecom companies to create demand for exorbitantly priced video conferencing. The Wisconsin DOC, is one of them. This suggests the motive has more to do with money than drugs.
ZOOM visits were established early in the lock down to make up for reduced in-person visiting. They were free. Then gradually increased to one 90-minute visit per week. Enough time for a meaningful conversation to develop. I could see my partner’s face, her smile and body language. It kept us going in very hard times.
A year later a deal was made with ICSolutions, a prison telecom company notorious for exorbitant fees and subpar service. ZOOM visits were gradually discontinued to create demand for “virtual visits” which cost $2.50 for 25 minutes. Moreover we lost 25% of the phones which were converted into virtual visiting stations. 5
I have one of the better paying jobs but it still takes my entire paycheck — $50.00 a month – to stay connected by phone. It would cost $40.00 a month to pay for the same time I had with my loved ones on a free ZOOM visit. Even if I could afford that, we’ve discovered that ICSolutions’ operating system is not compatible with any of my partner’s devices. The pain in her voice reflects my own as our time together is strangled and priced beyond our reach.
Reports are that the virtual visits are extremely unreliable. Roger Altieri, another Fox Lake prisoner said, “My Mom and I have set up 5 virtual visits. Only one of us could hear the other in 4 of them. They still charged us. What makes it worse is she is dying and we don’t have much time left.” Hamilton reports that the audio was down for 2 out of 3 virtual visits with his brother. They were charged. They were not reimbursed. “They have a line you call to get your money refunded but my brother said he couldn’t get through.”
The combination of reduced supply and greater demand means attempts at meaningful telephone conversations in 15 minute intervals – usually every 30 – 40 minutes. Trying to have conversations that truly foster and strengthen bonds with loved ones has proven to be very difficult. There is no time to get into a flow.
ELECTRONIC MEDIA.
In 2018 emails cost Wisconsin prisoners and their loved ones .5¢ each to send through corrlinks. A fact which rankled friends and family because while their own email was free, they had to pay to answer my email. Sadly, this was only the beginning. By 2020 the DOC had raised that to .10¢. and on September 1, 2023, they went up to .15¢.
That hike was announced in the same memo from WDOC OMB, Wendy Monfils, where she announced that a new tablet contract is being finalized with unnamed corporation, (Most likely ICSolutions ) which would render the tablets Wisconsin prisoners already purchased, along with thousands of dollars in music and other content, useless. (My collection of 1,000 songs at $1.95 cost me about $2,000. A little over 6 years wages at .18¢ per hour – the average wage for Wisconsin prisoners.) We will then have to rent tablets and their content from the contractor.
As always with the WDOC, the details are kept a secret until it’s too late to intervene. Worthrises reports that .05¢ per minute to use these tablets is not uncommon. That is what they cost in the Milwaukee County Jail. An inmate who was there says he was spending $30.00 a night. I don’t know what it will cost us in WDOC but if “past is prologue” it will be more than most of us can afford.
MAIL
The WDOC citing issues with synthetic cannabinoids coming in through the mail, made it policy in February of 2021, to allow only photocopies of personal mail. It was done in house. Mail was delivered within 3 to 4 days of the postmark. By November 2021 they had contracted with TextBehind. Since then, I haven’t received a letter within 2 weeks of the post mark. Five weeks is not uncommon. I received, as I had until then, about 20 Christmas cards in 2021. In 2022 I received 5. Most in January. Loved ones say they love me but there’s no point in sending a letter that won’t arrive for 2 – 5 weeks.
For a fee 2 to 3 times the price of postage, TextBehind will expedite delivery after you open an account with them with a minimum balance of $5.00. They keep whatever balance goes unused. It doesn’t seem to have reduced the amount of contraband coming into the prison but it has significantly reduced my contact with loved ones.
Outside support systems for prisoners tend to be fluid. Often people who love someone in prison have to step back for a time to avoid being overwhelmed by the hardship. Christmas is when I and those I don’t speak to regularly catch up. Letters are returned to the sender if they are sent to the prison. If they are not familiar with the ever changing morass of mailing addresses it strains those relationships even further.
Profiting on human suffering is wrong. Increasing human suffering to make more profit by exploiting the love of some of Wisconsin’s poorest families is depraved. Converting an agency whose mission is supposed to be protecting public safety into one that sacrifices public safety, creates a condition where people will be hurt, to make a profit is criminal negligence.
FN
¹ http://www.fcanetwork.org/reading/holt-miller/holt-millersum.html
² https://mn.gov/doc/assets/11-11MNPrisonVisitationStudy_tcm1089-272781.pdf -11MN prison visitation study.pdf
³ Connecticut SB972, California SB1008, Durango Herald; Colorado Legislature sent a similar bill to Governor, Jared Polis, on
May 17, 2023,
⁴ An article in the Harrisburg Patriot News on April 21, 2023, examined the effect of such mail and visiting restrictions on drug use. It found that between August of 2018, when the restrictions were imposed, and December of 2022, the number of positive drug tests INCREASED almost 3 fold from 1.0% to 2.7%. Of course one can only speculate as to why but studies have shown better mental health, lower rates of depression and substance abuse among prisoners who have more contact with loved ones.
An article by Leah Wang, December 21, 2021, cites a 2019 study in Iowa found that in-prison misconduct was reduced in prisoners who received visits. Another in California found misconduct decreased in the weeks before a visit. In Tennessee the Knox County Sheriff’s Dept. saw violence, including inmate on staff violence, increase after eliminating in-person visits. A similar experience in Travis County TX led the Sheriff’s Dept there to reinstate in-person visiting. It looks a lot like what is happening in Wisconsin prisons now. (Notably Waupun and Green Bay)
5 See May 23, 2023 Memo from DAI Secretary, Sarah Cooper on “virtual visits” through ICSolutions.
6 The Prison Legal News reported in its August 2023 issue (Pg12) that Covid -19 visiting restrictions were unnecessarily prolonged by Sheriff departments netting millions more in kickbacks in other states. Wisconsin has followed suit. In addition, agencies are offered incentives to give these profiteers exclusive package deals to provide telephone, video conferencing and electronic media.