Idaho Inmates Discover Glitch In JPay Credit System

According to the report, the exploitation occurs on JPay tablet accounts. These devices are widely used in prisons around the U.S. and were provided to Idaho prison inmates via CenturyLink and JPay. With the tablets, inmates can email family and friends and purchase music and play online games.  But the service doesn’t come cheap. The AP reported sending a one-page email costs $0.50 from a prison in the state of Idaho.

The story has garnered a lot of social media interest, with some rooting for the inmates. Cara Berg Powers, executive director of the Transformative Culture Project in Massachusetts, is among them.

The AP pointed to a Twitter post in which Powers said, “we keep using technology and private corporations to make experiences for prisoners and their loved ones less and less humane.” Meanwhile, Peter Wagner, executive director of Prison Policy Initiative, an advocacy group, expressed support for the inmates. “These are the poorest folks in the state … and they are being asked to pay unreasonable sums of money to stay in touch with their loved ones,” Wagner said, noting that one in four women in America have an incarcerated loved one.

Idaho Department of Correction spokesman Jeff Ray told AP officials think the inmates knew what they were doing. “This conduct was intentional, not accidental. It required a knowledge of the JPay system and multiple actions by every inmate who exploited the system’s vulnerability,” Ray said in a prepared statement, reported the AP.