Victoria Law

Prisons are notoriously low-tech places. But urged on by privately owned companies, like JPay, facilities across the country are adding e-messaging, a rudimentary form of email that remains disconnected from the larger web. Nearly half of all state prison systems now have some form of e-messaging: JPay’s services are available to prisoners in 20 states. On the surface, e-messaging seems like an easy and efficient way for families to keep in touch—a quicker 21st-century version of pen-and-paper mail. Companies like JPay cover the price of installing the systems; prisons pay nothing.