The Center for Public Integrity has released the first in a two-part series investigating how private financial companies have made millions from the families of prisoners.
Over a six-month investigation CPI found that prison bankers collected tens of millions of dollars every year from inmates’ families in fees for basic financial services. As a result, some families have gone without medical coverage, paying bills or even staying in contact with their imprisoned family members.
So how did this happen? According to CPI, these problems can be traced back several years to the point when private financial firms, like Florida-based JPay, began to dominate the market for prisoners’ finances.
While families once could spend as little as $3 to send a traditional money order to inmates and have the funds transferred to their prison accounts, now they must pay upwards of $8 per transfer to have transfers made in a timely manner.
Although families can opt to continue sending paper money orders through companies like JPay, CPI found that many have converted to costly electronic transaction after waiting weeks or even a month for the funds to be made available to their loved ones.
JPay, which provides money transfers to more than 70% of the inmates in U.S. prisons, is often the only option for families to send money. And some consumer advocates say it would appear the company has taken advantage of its position by charging exorbitant fees.
In 2013, JPay processed 7 million transactions for families of inmates and made more than $50 million in revenue.
Transferring Funds To Prisoners Is Big Business For Some Financial Companies – Consumerist
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