This is a monumental decision for inmates & their families, but long-term progress can be made by getting rid of commissions, particularly at the state & local level. The FCC chose not to make a decision on commissions (citing the lack of legal authority) however it's eliminating or limiting these kickbacks thats needed to really re-align the market. Currently commissions are negotiated on a percentage basis, so facilities have an incentive to favor high customer costs since they get a chunk. This could be improved by legislation limiting commissions to a per-minute basis, so facilities have incentive to favor lower cost & higher-volume. That way rates continue to move downward.
Think about it like this... With the FCC's decision today rates are limited to a max of 0.14 cent a minute. Since commissions are percentage based a facility could demand 13.99999 cent commissions. Theres no incentive for them not to! If states were to set a maximum per-minute commissions at say, .05 cent a minute, it would encourage facilities to push the rates down in order to increase usage. Rates would never fall below .05 cent, but facilities would have incentive to push the rates down as close to the maximum as they could. It would also help cut down on the extra fees vendor's charge. Since extra fees eat into the money that families can spend on actual calls, facilities would have financial incentive to favor lower fees that would increase the number of minutes used.
We've seen nationwide[1] that lowering the total price to families increases call volume. Also increasing phone calls fights recidivism and heals family units. It's something I've been reading and personally care alot about with my work with Penmate[2]. Today's
victory was landmark, but there's certainly more progress ahead.
>> The problem is that tech must be embraced not just by individual lawyers and defenders who it would help the most, but also by the decision makers themselves, government agencies/law firms, who have the final say on whether to bring tech into their organizations.
Totally agree that systemic improvements will require adoption by decision makers and higher ups. A way to get there could be those individuals and lawyers closer to the problem demonstrating measurable improvements, and tech could be a great way to communicate that.
You mentioned strides being made to help augment lawyers capabilities. Can you elaborate on that? I'd love to read more about it.
Kind of Off-Topic, but I emailed Tina immediately upon reading this last week. It really moved me. I'd like to chat with any lawyers working as Public Defenders, pro bono or otherwise, to get a better idea of the day to day challenges they have with managing case load and communicating with clients. Things technoloy could help with. Does anyone know a good place/community/group to join?
I ask because myself, friends, and close family have all had experience with a Public defenders office at some point, the article is spot on about many clients being poor, assumed guilty, and lacking resources. I'm currently helping families navigate the criminal justice system with a company I started , but it's been on my head (and heart) to begin looking at providing resources to PD offices as well, as it's so important that these cases, particular low-level and drug offenses, are handled efficiently. I would love to get a better idea of the day-to-day challenges faced by an active public defender.
Also if anyone is interested in a amazing documentary about the courage and dedication PD's have check out Gideon's Army: http://m.imdb.com/title/tt2179053/. I think it's on Netflix.
I didn't see the image, thats helps me understand what you meant more, I see. I'm particularly sensitive to this because as a "young black male in tech" myself i've had to navigate around some the bias, though when I read the article I didn't get the feeling it added to the stereotype. I am excited to see YC involved with more minority founders though, so TC article aside, hopefully this leads to more.
I'd love to pick your brain about the existing prisons you've worked with. I'm working on a new project soon w/ Penmate that I'm currently doing a bit of R&D on. If you've got time to chat, can you shoot me an email at nick[at]penmateapp.com?
First, much respect to you for getting out and trying to help. I admire that a TON. Especially because i'm sure you know firsthand the difference it can make.
I'm hoping my work with Penmate (http://penmateapp.com) can help improve the library as well. In addition to helping keep families connected, we really want to improve the resources inmates have in prison, in particular books, magazines and learning resources. I'll be blogging more about it soon, definitely know what you mean here.
Thanks! I spent a lot of time thinking about UX, so that means a lot (note: there's a full mobile version available at http://m.penmateapp.com) We've started allowing families to send a free letter and photos last week so that's helped quite a bit.
Not to mention the exorbitant costs placed on inmate's families as well. That's the one part of the TC headline that nerves me a bit. This isn't just meant to serve the prison population -- It's the entire family unit thats grossly effected, which certainly contributes to recidivism. Change is needed.
I love seeing this problem tackled in YC! It's a personal issue thats effected my family & community as well, so much so that I've been focusing on helping try and solve it with Penmate (penmateapp.com). Seeing YC take interest in this speaks volumes, it's extremely motivating.
To the Pigeon.ly team -- If there's anyway I can help, lets get in touch. This definitely is a problem that needs to be solved. Best of luck!
I've recently developed a renewed interest in iOS development particularly because of ReactiveCocoa. The idea of declaratively describing the intent of an action, rather than how it should work, has helped things "click" for me and I'm looking forward to using FRP and ReactiveCocoa in building a few personal iOS projects. I'm continuing to read more about it and this post was very helpful, thanks for sharing. I have a couple additional questions for any seasoned iOS / ReactiveCocoa / FRP devs that would definitely help me along as I progress:
1) Are there any performance gotchas or things to look out for when embracing ReactiveCocoa? One thing thats stuck with me as I read is making sure to understand and keep and eye on memory management, even after embracing ARC. Is debugging ReactiveCocoa code any different than the normal imperative way?
2) What parts of an app shouldn't be handled with FRP? Should everything fit into the framework or is a code smell to handle things both ways?
3) I'm a Ruby Dev and I'm looking hard at RubyMotion as a good toolchain for iOS Dev. It looks like ReactiveCocoa and Rubymotion can play well together[1], but is this a hack? Is there any issue with using Rubymotion and ReactiveCocoa together. Seems like a great fit, but perhaps my inexperience isn't aware of a deeper issue.
I don't think it's the cost that's keeping other NBA Teams from purchasing ($100K/year is pennies to an NBA franchise). I suspect its more of a front-office vs coaching thing. Adopting this as part of a teams core prep takes education; Effectively learning how to understand this type of data and apply it in practice over the course of a season.
Great article. As a huge NBA & NFL fan, It's intriguing to see the front offices of some of these teams begin to think outside of the box when it comes to player development. I think that's the most interesting opportunity here -- the practice of "watching film" is now innovative enough to not only help prepare for opponents, but also provide coaches a better macro view of what to work on with specific players in the short & long term. Especially in coaching behavior "off the ball". Thats always a game changer.
The ghost AI is pretty impressive as well. I was skeptical at first as to how authentic this type of "player AI" would be, considering the program makes assumptions based on historical numbers and any athlete/coach would certainly argue that its different in-game, however this says a ton:
> That's brutal, and it's not a coincidence that the only team that consistently mirrors the help defense of its ghosts is Miami, Rucker says. The Heat have three of the best wing defenders in the league in Shane Battier, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade, and the latter two are among the NBA's most gifted pure athletes. James can mimic DeRozan's hyperactive ghost in a way no other player can, Rucker says. "LeBron basically messes up the system and the ghosts," Rucker says. "He does things that are just unsustainable for most players."
Not a huge Miami fan (Go BULLS!) but you can't deny their defensive effort.
This is a monumental decision for inmates & their families, but long-term progress can be made by getting rid of commissions, particularly at the state & local level. The FCC chose not to make a decision on commissions (citing the lack of legal authority) however it's eliminating or limiting these kickbacks thats needed to really re-align the market. Currently commissions are negotiated on a percentage basis, so facilities have an incentive to favor high customer costs since they get a chunk. This could be improved by legislation limiting commissions to a per-minute basis, so facilities have incentive to favor lower cost & higher-volume. That way rates continue to move downward.
Think about it like this... With the FCC's decision today rates are limited to a max of 0.14 cent a minute. Since commissions are percentage based a facility could demand 13.99999 cent commissions. Theres no incentive for them not to! If states were to set a maximum per-minute commissions at say, .05 cent a minute, it would encourage facilities to push the rates down in order to increase usage. Rates would never fall below .05 cent, but facilities would have incentive to push the rates down as close to the maximum as they could. It would also help cut down on the extra fees vendor's charge. Since extra fees eat into the money that families can spend on actual calls, facilities would have financial incentive to favor lower fees that would increase the number of minutes used.
We've seen nationwide[1] that lowering the total price to families increases call volume. Also increasing phone calls fights recidivism and heals family units. It's something I've been reading and personally care alot about with my work with Penmate[2]. Today's victory was landmark, but there's certainly more progress ahead.
[1] 2014 FCC Report on ICS (search 'call volumes') http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=60000975214 [2] http://penmateapp.com