Time is money: who's making a buck off prisoners' families?
Adryann Glenn, former inmate: I sold cocaine. I started selling cocaine when I was eleven years old. Powder cocaine, never crack.
Vincent Townsend, Pay-Tel Communications president: The reason we’re in this mess now, on my side, my industry has abused the public.
Danielle, inmate’s partner: I was pretty mad, I mean, you made a mistake but now I gotta pay for it.
Jack Donson, former federal prisons officer: You can make a lot of money from prisoners and prisoners’ families, especially in these peripheral services.
Pat Taylor, inmate’s mother: They are dependent on their families’ money – completely dependent on their families’ money. And they’re punishing the families not the inmates.
Mignon Clyburn, FCC Commissioner: There are 2.7 million children with at least one parent in prison. There are 700,000 inmates who are released to society every year. This is an American problem, this is a main street problem.
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Jack Donson: There is plenty of money to be made out of that unfortunately.
Ryan Shapiro, JPay CEO: I know who’s making money down to the penny and I can tell you that nobody's making a killing on those margins.
Jewel Miller, inmate’s mother: You know it is kinda sad that they would pick on his mother who is 80 years old and trying to make do on 12 hundred and something dollars a month.
Dan Wagner, Reporter: It’s just not one company, and it's not just one prison. This is an entire system that is shifting the burden on poor families.
Keith Miller, inmate: The fact that she has to pay the fees to send the money and then the fact that they make a certain cut off it seems to be that they’re double dipping.
TIME IS MONEY: HOW A WEB OF PRISON BANKERS, PRIVATE VENDORS AND CORRECTIONS AGENCIES PROFIT BY SHIFTING COSTS ONTO INMATES’ FAMILIES.
Related: Debit cards slam released prisoners with sky-high fees, few protections
Jewel Miller: I’m Jewel Miller and I live at Swords Creek and I am very active.
Friday’s Jewel day so I have my hair done that day and just get out and mostly enjoy whatever comes my way.
But I always do it on a weekend so when I go up, that it will look good.
I go see my son every Saturday.
I have six kids. I have one daughter that has passed away. My youngest one is in prison at Bland.
Keith Miller: I worked in coal mines and I got out running around I guess with the wrong crowd and long story short I came into getting strung out on Oxycontin. Things just kept going downhill from there. I ended up getting two robbery charges with other charges included.
Related: Inside the virtual tollbooth at many U.S. prisons
I got 21 years and six months.
Pat Taylor: My name is Pat Taylor and I live in Johnson City, TN.
Eddie’s been incarcerated 14 years.
I was a single mother. He's had a -- he had a rough life.
Pat Taylor’s son Eddie and Jewel Miller’s son Keith are serving time at Bland Correctional Center, where they train service dogs for disabled veterans and kids.
Keith Miller: Cato, load. Verrry gooood.
Related: Megabanks have prison financial services market locked up
It’s a real good sense of accomplishment to know that you’re doing something good for the community, to give back.
Good boy.
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Profiting from Prisoners. Click here to read more stories in this investigation.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
