NYC inmates can't receive donated books anymore, only buy them

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

https://www.wnyc.org/story/ny-inmates-c ... hase-them/

Restricting the access of prisoners to a very narrow range of books while also financially extorting them and their families is...to be expected.

[Nealithi]

Okay so I thought all mail from letters to packages were inspected prior to being given to a prisoner. So what contraband? Restricted food? Correctional facilities by me the prisoners trade for ramen because portions are incredibly scarce. So again, how?
I get it is a prison and this is a pilot program. But this seems off some how.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I'm going to be cynical and say that limiting their access to information is a way to make sure they stay disappeared, prevent them from developing skills that would help them avoid recidivism after they leave, make more money for the shitty book providers with government-subsidized monopolies, etc. You know, all the evil stuff.

[LittleRaven]

You know, all the evil stuff.

Eh...I doubt it. This screams 'potential revenue stream' to me. I'm pretty sure some suit looked at the system, was like 'How can we squeeze one more drop of cash out of this bad boy?' and then came up with brilliant idea of forcing all prisoners to shop at the company store under the guise of 'security.'

It's a straight up cash grab. Which doesn't make it any less appalling, of course. The free market is great at some things...a lot of things, actually. But it is not the right tool for every job, and I think our ongoing experimentation with private prisons is going to go down in history as one of our sorrier moments. Things like this illustrate why. When profit is introduced as a possible motive, it quickly becomes the dominant one, and forces out all other considerations.