[music] I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome Bianca Tylek to our broadcast today.

She's executive director of Worth Rises and one of the most important explainers of the justice system, specifically how it's monetized and how we might endeavor to demonetize it.

Bianca, a pleasure to meet you today.

Thank you.

So great to be here, Alexander.

Bianca, what is Worth Rises?

Worth Rises is a national criminal justice organization that works to dismantle the prison industry and end the exploitation of people who are incarcerated and their loved ones.

And one of the ways that you work to do that is to show people how the justice system is monetized.

For those who are just hearing that for the first time and wondering what that means.

What does that mean?

The monetization of prisons or the justice system?

Sure.

So, the criminal legal system is a 80 to $90 billion industry.

A lot of people think when they think of industry, they think of private prisons.

But the truth is that it's much, much bigger than that, right?

It's, all of the private sector that is in prisons and jails, from healthcare to telecom.

It also includes all of those whose livelihoods depend on the carceral system, like correctional officers, and others.

And so it's really just this, you know, huge sort of, balloon of entities and individuals who rely on incarceration, for their wealth or their livelihood.

Okay, so here's what I want to understand.

And I don't really understand it.

And I'm hoping you can help me understand it.

The people who allege that there's not just monetization, but there is kind of like those gambling on more prisoners being in jails, in prison.

So more system impacted people.

They're going to make money because they basically bet on the system continuing to enlarge.

Like that to me, is the most devious, intractable part of monetization.

Is that the way it works right now?

That is, the system is designed, so that people, private investors, you know, even states are going to have larger budgets because they imprison more people.

Yeah.

So I would.

You know, I think bet is an interesting word choice.

I would say these are rigged bets, right?

They are investing in this system to make it expand.

They're not just gambling on whether it will or will not.

Right?

And so, yes, you have a huge industry, a number, of folks who, need this system to exist, and to expand.

And when you talk about the carceral industry, expanding means more people behind bars and for longer.

Right?

And so the business interests that are invested in this space, they actually, you know, contribute to campaigns or do lobbying, to expand the system.

That means harshen, criminal laws, whether that means putting, more people behind bars because we are criminalizing more activities or keeping them longer there by extending sentences and things of that sort.

So these companies and these, you know, sort of entities that are vested in this system are actually rigging the system to ensure that more people are there so that they can capitalize on that.

And I'll take it, you know, to your point about the states, there's also you know, scenarios where because of a declining population, a state might be able to, reduce their number of prisons, let's say.

And then you have, correctional officer unions who will fight to keep those facilities open so that, people have jobs and, you know, it's a really, really bleak picture to think that we need to incarcerate people so that others have employment.

We need to find alternative solutions to how people are generating wealth.

Or like I said, simply their livelihood off of this system.

Right.

And I think there's the misperception that only private prisons are monetized.

Public prisons often work with vendors, that operate in a for profit climate.

And where have we seen success in demonetizing facets of the system?

Because it's, as you describe it, it's just, a mountainous, undertaking.

You're trying to break the status quo.

And, where have you had success either at the state level or federally in trying to change the motivation of people not to build out the system more?

Sure.

So, you know, I think it's hard to say that we've had, like, broad success to completely demonetize the system.

I think these systems are, sort of wealth generation is baked into them, and it's a very, very big system.

And so kind of unpacking that entire piece will take quite a bit of time.

But I think where we've been able to make inroads, I can give an example is like in telecom, take prison telecom, which on its own is a 1.4, $1.5 billion industry.

And, you know, families are going into debt simply to afford a phone call with their loved ones, right?

Phone calls in prisons come at egregious rates.

And 1 in 3 families is struggling to pay for them and specifically going into debt in order to do so.

And so what we've been doing over these last few years is actually challenging legislatures to provide communication completely for free.

Right?

And that means not just actually providing that service, but in many cases, those states, those prisons or those jails need to also be willing to let go of the commissions that they earn on these calls.

So I think that comes as a surprise to many that not only is there a really predatory industry that is charging people egregious rates, but then prisons and jails are taking a commission off the top and sort of adding to those egregious rates.

And so we've have successfully passed legislation in five states to make communication, completely free out of their state prisons, from Connecticut to California, which allows people who are incarcerated to have regular access to their families, which we know is beneficial in that it increases, their hope, improves or increases their engagement in programs.

That help them come home sooner and also helps them stay home, because they are more likely to have the support of their loved ones because they are connected during their incarceration.

They will have more likely to have housing, to have employment, to have all the social services that they need, and just general support.

And so we've been able to do that.

We've also been able to like, get the, FCC to increase regulation of the system.

Specifically, I should say, of prison telecom, and curb what they can charge in different places.

So, you know, there are, efforts that are happening to really try to start removing some of these financial incentives that are successful.

But financial incentives are so deeply entrenched in our system, that it'll take time to unravel all of them.

And in the 45 states where that exploitation is occurring.

When you say that the prison gets a commission.

What do you mean by that?

It sounds like that could be a private or public prison getting the commission.

The idea is that money goes back to the prison and increases the budget of the prison.

That's right.

This has nothing to do with private or public prisons.

I think it's important to remember that only 8% of our entire, correctional population is inside of a private prison.

The bulk, 92% of people who are incarcerated are in publicly operated facilities.

And yet all facilities, in many cases have engaged in this, practice of commissions.

Now, what that means is, let's say, there's a company involved that is charging, $0.25 for a phone call.

Now I'm going to say gratefully, because of recent FCC rules, this is no longer allowed.

And, you know, sort of that, implementation of those rules is starting now.

But let's say that that was the case that they're charging, $0.25 for a phone call, which up until the most recent rules was allowable.

And then, they decide with the prison or jail, including publicly operated facilities, how to split that.

So the company might take $0.20 of that 25.

And the, prison or jail might take five.

And in some cases, the prison or jail is actually taking as much as 90%, 95% of that rate is going back to that jail.

And as you said, it's being added to their budget at some point.

In some cases, it's being put into the general fund of the county or the state.

It can be used to fund all types of things in different areas.

But now the new FCC regulations actually prohibit commissions.

And, you know, commissions is a nice way of saying kickbacks these are really just like corporate kickbacks that are coming through, these exclusive contracts with prison telecom vendors.

What about other third party vendors?

Because that's a particular aspect of this that I know you're studied in, whether that's, private security, food, other things that operate the prison.

How are those things, monetized or what is the relationship, that the system has with those those types of vendors?

Well, I would say just about everything inside of a prison or jail can be outsourced to a private vendor.

Therefore, you know, there is a business or industry around it, everywhere, everything from telecom, as we've just been talking about, to outsourcing of healthcare, to the outsourcing of food provision, to the outsourcing of commissary, laundry can be outsourced.

Think about, you know, the construction, and maintenance of prisons and jails.

Right?

Think about, sort of the, where a prison or jail my buy batons and tasers and, you know, OC or what we call chemical sprays.

Right?

All of those things are a market.

And so, we see those panning out in a lot of different ways.

In the case of telephones, we're really, you know, used to families paying for those services.

But in the, case of healthcare, it might be the agency that's actually paying for the service.

They are, the ones contracting, let's say healthcare services.

But the exploitation still happens off the body of the person who's incarcerated because for something like a healthcare service, if the agency pays the company in particular, sort of fixed rate and says, hey, you're going to get, let's say, $50 million to provide healthcare services to the people in our facility.

Well, how do they make money?

Basically, by as much as they can cut their expenses.

They cut their expenses by cutting the quality of care that they are giving.

And that means that the people who are incarcerated suffer at the hands of those cost cutting.

Right?

And that has actually played out in pretty, incredible ways in this industry in the sense that these major prison healthcare companies are now racking up medical malpractice lawsuits.

And instead of paying those out, instead of deciding to improve their care so that they can, you know, reduce or curb these type of medical malpractice lawsuits, they're simply filing for bankruptcy to clean their slate of all these, like, tort liabilities and then continuing to operate the same way.

In fact, we've seen three major prison healthcare companies filed for bankruptcy in the last 18 to 24 months.

One of them, Horizon, for example, had over $1 billion in lawsuit judgments and settlements when it filed for bankruptcy and cleaned its entire slate and continues to operate today under a new name.

Yeah.

It does seem rigged and unfair.

Part of that is just the manifestations of capitalism in, ways that we necessarily, did not foresee being manipulated.

You might call it crony capitalism.

It sounds like there's a lot of crony capitalism that's hijacked this system, again, speculative, exploitative and, elusive ways.

So knowing that's the case.

Who are the allies, that want to demonetize the prison industrial complex?

Sure.

So I mean, you know, we operate as an organization in an ecosystem of criminal justice organizations around the country that are working to, sort of transform and in some cases, even abolish the system.

Right?

We are sort of find our partnerships in a lot of different leans.

And so we might be working locally on a campaign to, let's say, like and the cost of calls inside of a prison in the state of Washington.

And we will have a number of local partners, including a lot of directly impacted families who help and support, pushing legislation like that through a state legislature.

We may, have a campaign, as we do, to end the exception of the 13th amendment, which still allows people who are incarcerated to be enslaved, because the 13th amendment has an exception clause that quite, explicitly says, except as punishment for a crime, shall everybody be protected from slavery and involuntary servitude.

And in that campaign, we have over 90 national partners, organizations around the country, that are engaged in that.

And of course, you know, we are, grateful to the donors and funders that support this work who believe in a more ethical, society that doesn't, build its wealth off of the confinement of people who are incarcerated.

And then, tactically speaking.

Like I think of it as a map of the United States.

And I know you have a database, you can go to your website and take a closer look at the scale of monetization and the particular vendors, you know, one by one, state by state.

But, what is the sort of the strategic way to bring people into your movement, to see the value of demonetizing the prison system, at least to the extent that there is not, a way that that folks are tipping the scale, to make it more likely that someone is incarcerated.

It almost feels like the perverse incentive of people who would want more, dollars for an operation inside a prison.

Again, I think that you can differentiate between the speculator, who's sort of betting on the continuation of the system being the way it is or, you know, continuing to enlarge and someone who believes in the efficacy, that the necessity and efficacy of rehabilitation, but doesn't want to put their thumb on the scale in such a way that makes it impossible for the system to shrink.

And so I ask you about allies, but I really mean, where have you seen people be persuaded that this is a problem?

Where and how have you seen people change their mind on this or see that we shouldn't be, putting our thumb on the scale?

Because if the conventional wisdom is you're making money by, enlarging prisons and, your portfolio in the millions or billions is going to increase, exponentially because this is just the status quo that we accept.

That doesn't seem fair.

So I'm wondering where you've made inroads in persuasion.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I do want to keep going back to this, like, I don't think it's a bet.

And I don't think it's speculation.

Right?

These are not speculative investments.

These are not bets.

These are investments, right, that are made broadly.

The corporations and those who have a vested interest in them are spending money to ensure that the system grows.

Right?

They're not just simply betting on whether it will, they are forcing it to do that by actually going and lobbying on the Hill.

And so where do we, like, make inroads?

Well, on the opposite.

Right?

Like, who are the legislators?

The elected officials that government partners, the media, where we can convince and have a discussion about how, as you said, putting your thumb, on that scale is a problem.

Right?

And so, as I mentioned, we've, like passed these bills across the country to make communication free.

Those are all voted on bills.

So we were able to convince, legislators in the state of Connecticut, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Massachusetts that, the predatory prison telecom industry should not be enriched, and that people who are incarcerated should be able to communicate with their loved ones, because that is part of their rehabilitative process.

As well as just like a basic human need, and get those state legislatures to affirm, you know, when I talked about the FCC regulations, right?

That is an entire government agency that has come and said, you know, what we do agree that this is egregious, and that this is predatory and that we should, curb these rates and the FCC has authority to do that was actually granted by a bipartisan bill that passed in Congress in 2022.

Which, you know, it's not all that common that we have a bunch of bipartisan bills these days, especially coming out of DC.

But in 2022, a coalition of organizations that we were a part of passed the Martha Wright Reed Act, which expanded the FCC's, authority over regulating the prison telecom industry, to include, you know, not just phone calls, 100%, you know, in prisons and jails, but also video calls and other things.

And so, you know, again, in that conversation, we were able to persuade a bipartisan set of lawmakers to increase the regulation of this industry.

So I think, you know, these conversations can be really successful.

But it starts with people understanding that there is an industry and how that industry operates, meaning the way in which it really invests to expand this system in the way it preys on people who are incarcerated and their loved ones.

Yeah.

And I think about it from the, when I say speculator, I really mean investor.

What I really mean by that is the theory, if not the reality, that someone's going to become much richer, whether it's an organization or a person.

And we live in an America of oligarchy.

I mean, this is the most oligarchic America ever.

And so that's really what I mean.

I'm talking about, whether or not demonetization requires some of those oligarchs to recognize that that they would have to take leadership in divesting themselves, like, in the same way we think of the divestment on, energy issues, for unsafe or environmentally harmful practices.

Like, is that the kind of scale of demonetization that we need in order for the system really to to function in the way that we think is fair?

You know, I think we have to first just sort of understand that this system is being manipulated by those investing in it.

Right?

A lot of people believe, for example, that, you know, crime is there's sort of this, like, absolute picture of what crime is.

And the reality is that like a lot of corporations, a lot of people with vested interests, even political vested interests, manipulate the concept of crime, like what is a crime, right?

And what should punishments for a crime be?

Right?

So, you know, there was a big, conversation about organized retail theft and a lot of that was like, conjured up by these, corporations, who have, you know, brick and mortar storefront because they are losing business to online retailers.

And because they want to shift the cost of their security to the public.

Right?

And they want police officers in their stores.

Like, there are all these reasons that these type of, like, conversations exist and who, these oligarchs, as you mentioned, like how they are manipulating the conversation around crime and criminal justice and sort of like sentencing and things of that sort, what is public safety?

You know, why is it that wage theft by CEOs is not charged the same way that theft of bread out of a store is?

Right?

You are not seeing those people sitting in a jail cell.

And so I think, like, really us trying to understand who defines what crime is, who then gets to decide what crimes are arrested, what crimes are charged, and then what the sentences for those crimes are, and how that's shaped around those who have in our society and those who have not in our society.

And so it's certainly going to take all of that to like, really get to a place where we have removed financial incentives from this system.

And we are, sort of parsing through those conversations.

But I wouldn't, you know, hold my breath the whole time that, like, those in power are going to want to change, these things and that we're going to, like, miraculously convince them as if they don't know that they're doing these things, right?

Like they are doing these things intentionally because it enriches them or it benefits them in one way.

And so part of our work is to, you know, build the power of those who are impacted on the other end.

And to push back loudly so that we can start to, you know, expose what they're doing and then, change it.

Last question, Bianca.

What are you most focused on right now after the phone, the telecom issue?

Like, what's the next issue that you're really, thinking can be tangibly effective in addressing?

I think there's three, you know, key issues that we're looking at next.

One is labor, the exploitation of labor, of incarcerated people.

I think this is very, very timely right now.

Especially as we're seeing, incarcerated firefighters take to the frontlines, of the wildfires in Los Angeles.

And, you know, in particular, California actually had the opportunity to vote on a state constitutional amendment that would have ended, the ability of the agency to force people into labor.

And that amendment lost and simultaneously or just a few months later, right?

Now, we're relying on people who are incarcerated to save people's homes, families, and all of that.

And I think California, owes incarcerated people an apology, and a vote, you know, come the next few years to actually end and ban slavery.

I think secondly, we're thinking about healthcare, as I mentioned, the example of what we're seeing happening in the correctional healthcare landscape.

I think correctional healthcare is in an absolute crisis.

People are dying inside all the time, because of subpar healthcare.

And these companies are using bankruptcy to essentially, avoid liability for any of it.

And so that is a big area that I think we want to, really focus on.

And lastly, with the change in administration, we are obviously, paying a lot of attention to private prisons right now only because of their outsized role in immigration.

While they play a relatively small role in the correctional system today, even though they had a lot to do with them back in the 1980s and 90s, they do play a huge role in immigration detention and deportation and surveillance.

And, so we are, you know, expecting to do some rapid response around that in the coming months.

Bianca, thank you for your insight today.

Thank you so much.

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