Pennsylvania's Department of Imprisonment is always looking for new ways to cheat prisoners and their families. Prisoners' loved ones are taxed, charged and gouged so that the prisons can make a profit. Such graft is illegal in most decent places. It should be illegal in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has now come up with the email scam. Like the phone racket and the commissary racket, the email racket is intended to profit the prisons at the expense of prisoners' impoverished families. As we all know, email is essentially free. Of course there's a few bucks for the Internet connection and maybe half a cent for a sheet of paper if you want to printout an email. We receive about 5000 emails a day. They cost us nothing except the few pennies for the Internet connection. The prison system has found a way to turn a free service into a big moneymaker. It can help keep prisoners locked up. Better yet, it can help pay huge salaries ($10,000 a month for the prison department boss) to prison employees. Suckers may "open an account" with one of several email servers. You can't use the excellent free services such as Google Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Mail, or Thunderbird. After setting up an account and paying a large sum to the prisons' business partner, the sucker may send an email to a prisoner. The prisoner can't reply by email. That's way, way too dangerous. More importantly, it offers little profit for the racketeers. What does the sucker get for her/his money? Firstly, the message is censored and read by the computer. It looks for dangerous words such as titty, love, drug, etc. Secondly, it takes a long time for the email to be delivered, at least as long as snail-mail. While we condemn the racket and strongly recommend against its use, we list the prisons' email business partners. Think twice before helping the prisons profit. Electronic Message Soultions Inmate Calling Solutions (ICS) JPAY (Jail Pay) SECURUS Perhaps the worst of the lot. Different servers serve different prisons. All are grossly overpriced. Pennsylvania prisons - anything for a buck! Anything to abuse the citizens. Rebecca's Bargain Antiques Collectible Vintage Photos Fine Prints - Old Maps Sheet Music - Old Books Elegant Antiques and Collectibles "'Pathetic,'" he said. 'That's what it is, pathetic,'" Words put into the mouth of Eeyore by AA Milne, 1926 You are welcome to use or republish any of our material. Please give www.prisoners.com credit as the source. Return to the News Items Menu. Return to the Families and Visiting Menu. Return to the Main Menu. Go to our site's Search Engine. Send us Your Comments, Questions or Input.