Inmates get e-mail? Lawmakers want details

Of all the people that should be used to reading the small print, you'd think TX legislators would, but it would seem that no one mentioned emails when they agreed to setting up the inmate phone system in TDCJ.

Lyons said that 40 percent of all revenue from both the e-mail system and the phone system goes to the state — the first $10 million to the Crime Victims' Compensation Fund and anything more than that to the state's general fund.

Since September, the pay phones and e-mail system — mostly the phones — have generated about $2.1 million in revenue, compared with about $200,000 the previous year, when the system was being installed, according to officials



Isn't that enough to sway the opinion poll......more money the state does not have to shovel into the system. I would think they would be doing all they can to reap the rewards from it?

Yeah, but this is Texas remember. No matter how much it benefits victims, if the inmates are perceived to be getting something, then it has to be stopped.

The issue really is, the fact that emails were not part of the agreement when the phones system was on the table. It is not Embarq that manage the emails, it is Jpay, and they have not had to put in a separate bid to do it. It goes to show how naive the Legislators were, or how disinterested they were, in the logistics of setting up the phone system. Jpay already had the ability to administrate deposits onto inmates' accounts, and they are creaming off the fees for depositing money into the phone accounts. The figures that M Lyons speaks of are taken from the 24c / 26c per minute that Embarq charge for the actual calls.

Ugh, Texas is the craziest state when it comes to all of this prison stuff IMO. They'll ban anything they can! Really hope they don't ban jpay emails, I use it a few times a week to write 2 of my 3 pp's