...Cavaluzzi's meal cost about $10. Or as Cavaluzzi puts it: "Everything. It was everything. I was used to making $10 a month."
He made that money as a librarian in prison, where wages start at 11 cents an hour. But those hard-earned dollars disappeared faster than he expected, and when he called Chase, he found out the reason was fees.
"It just seemed a little..." Cavaluzzi trails off. "It was sketchy."
...
"There's this split mentality – on the one hand, we are saying we would like to re-integrate people, and on the other hand, we are having lots of policies that undermine their ability to reintegrate," she says.
Still, contracting with private companies that charge inmates for their services is hardly exceptional.