Streaming Behind Bars

If you’ve seen any docuseries set in jails or prisons recently, you may have seen incarcerated people holding tablets. As Philip Vance Smith II writes from inside a medium-security prison, these aren’t just telecom devices to handle phone and payment services. They also deliver movies and television—at costs that vary from facility to facility, but are consistent in their exorbitance.

The high cost of entertainment falls on families of the incarcerated more than us because we can’t earn much money behind bars. Most jobs in North Carolina prisons pay 40¢, 70¢, or $1 per day—so a streaming bundle could cost a prisoner two weeks’ worth of income, or more. We simply can’t afford the price of entertainment. The astronomical fees that prison-tech companies charge are aimed at our families, who want to help us while we are incarcerated.