Russia’s Amazon for Prisoners Offers Online Shopping and E-Mail Behind Bars

bloomberg.com

18 points·pavornyoh··5 comments

Maybe we rethink the laws putting people behind bars or the legal system that so inefficient that some public defenders have literally only minutes to devote to each individual case before we spend resources figuring out how to get them "subscribe and save".

I completely agree. As a society, we need to figure out who's truly dangerous and lock them up, and provide rehabilitation or community based correctional options (probation, community service, jail) to those who we're really mad at.

Awesome concept. I want to help build one for the prisoner system in the US.

The biggest problem might be the lack of a "prisoner system in the US." The US has a Federal prisons system and 50 different state prison systems. Each system makes their own rules.

Federal prisoners may have access to send and receive email, through a system called CorrLinks. I think it is standard across all BOP facilities. At the state level, JPay.com does provide a means to contact inmates via email. Inmates cannot send email.

There are several companies which provide a means for friends and families of inmates to go online and order items for inmates, at least on the state level. Access Securepak (https://www.accesscatalog.com/) may be the largest. You pick the state and only authorized items are listed, packages are restricted to X times per year, a certain weight or dollar amount, etc. I think Texas runs their own online commissary.

I suppose drone deliveries would be perfect for this too!

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