So, as promised, JPay. If you don’t know what that is, then you don’t know anyone in New York state prison.
Just like the outside world, the type of life a person can live in prison has a lot to do with money. Not their money, though, or at least not money they control. DOCCS, the agency which administers New York’s prisons, prevents incarcerated individuals from having checking accounts, or any other interest they can access without state approval. Prisoners can deposit their assets in a DOCCS account at intake, but most people choose not to let the State have everything they own, or to let their guards know how much they can extort them or their family for (yes, it happens).
For that reason, nearly all state prisoners who have access to money get it sent to them by family.
And people need that money in prison. The food is inedible, so they need to pay to eat something they can stomach. It’s boring in there, and sometimes the only way to stay out of trouble is to pay for music or books or TV. And it’s lonely, so sometimes people need to pay to write to their loved ones, or they need to pay to see a video of their kids, or pay to send their wife an anniversary card (more on that later). And, in New York and most other states, a prisoner needs to pay to get money from family too.
The reason that money costs more money in prison is JPay.[1] Once described by Bloomberg as “The Apple of the US Prison System,” the company, founded by a go-getting law graduate who was later indicted for securities fraud,[2] is a subsidiary of Securus Technologies, a private prison telecom company owned by a Beverly Hills private equity firm. JPay describes itself as an “information technology and financial services provider,” which is corporation speak for a company that extracts rents from prisoners and their families in return for essential services.
JPay’s offerings range from video visitation to probation payment processing. In New York, however, JPay has been under contract since 2007 to provide three categories of service: financial transactions, tablets, and messaging. We’ll go through them one at a time.
Financial Services
In the rooms for visitation, at Rikers or at any one of New York’s 44 state prisons, it’s impossible to miss the bright green posters. They remind visiting families that if their loved ones need money, JPay is there to help. Well, they’re actually the only way to help.[3] And just for a small fee.
To send a prisoner between $0 and $20, JPay charges families $3.15 if they transfer money via the JPay app, and $4.15 if they need to do it over the phone. And the fees go up with amount transferred, per the company’s contract with the state:
| Amount Transferred | Fee via Website/App | Fee via Phone |
| $0.00 – $20.00 | $3.15 | $4.15 |
| $20.01 – $100.00 | $6.15 | $7.15 |
| $100.01 – $200.00 | $8.15 | $9.15 |
| $200.01 – $300.00 | $10.15 | $11.15 |
DOCCS receives no commission on these transactions; JPay keeps all the money. Which begs the question why JPay charges so much for a service that Venmo and CashApp offer for free: a fee of 31.5% for a transfer of just $10. To give you a sense of scope, incarcerated New Yorkers spent $38 million on jail and prison commissary in 2018, much of which was transferred to them through JPay’s platform. That same year, JPay collected around $2 million in fees from New York City jails alone, which account for only 35% of that statewide spending number. And those fees really matter, because families of the incarcerated often have limited budgets; luxuries like healthcare and food in addition to JPay’s profits can make for a tight squeeze. Woman heads of household bear the brunt of this naked theft.
JPay operated under the above fee schedule until 2022, when the State began to enforce a longstanding statutory prohibition on transfer fees over $5.00. Prior to the change, for fifteen long years, JPay charged New Yorkers the entire range of fees, and were permitted to do so under a legal exception granted by DOCCS.
According to NY Focus, exceptions were granted because JPay told state regulators it could not afford to operate with a cap on fees, and as recently as 2021, JPay had New York City’s Department of Corrections lobbying the state on its behalf, arguing that a $5.00 fee cap “would essentially prevent [JPay] from continuing to provide [financial] services, except for the most minimal of transactions.”
But, when the exception wasn’t granted for 2022, JPay renewed its contract with New York State anyway. So I guess they lied about the whole not-operating thing.
JPay also offers a debit card service to state prison systems, including New York. It’s called the “Progress Card.”
Because state prisoners may not open or operate checking accounts, the Progress Card serves to hold the money people are given upon release ($40 in New York)[4], as well as service their financial transactions until they can get a bank account. JPay’s contract with DOCCS set its fees for debit card services too, again without a commission to the State.
| Action | Fee (Paid by Cardholder) |
| ATM Withdrawal (Domestic) | $2.00 |
| ATM Withdrawal (International) | $4.00 |
| ATM Decline (Domestic) | $0.70 |
| ATM Decline (International) | $1.50 |
| ATM Balance Inquiry (Domestic) | $0.50 |
| ATM Balance Inquiry (International) | $1.50 |
| Purchase: Pin/Signature (Domestic) | $0.50 |
| Purchase: Pin/Signature (International) | $1.00 |
| Pin/Signature Decline (Domestic & Intl.) | $0.50 |
| Monthly Service Fee | $2.00 |
| Inactivity Fee (60 days or more) | $2.99 |
| Replace Card | $5.00 |
| Expedite Card | $30.00 |
| Account Closure | $9.95 |
| Statement Print | $1.50 |
It’s hard to conceptualize, I think, just how quickly fees could add up for a releasee in this scheme. Imagine you got a Progress Card with a $40 balance, and then look at those fees.
Well, for a releasee in that position, it’s imprudent to opt out: JPay would charge $10 just to mail him a check for the remaining $30. So let’s assume he chooses to use the card: because he needs a meal after getting out, or a bus ticket, or maybe a few dollars cash.
When using his “Progress Card,” JPay would take $0.50 from every transaction which required a pin or signature, which last time I checked is just about all of them. If he wanted to withdraw cash, JPay would take $2.00, which would be separate and apart from whatever fee the ATM charged. Does he want to see how much is left on his card? That’ll be $0.50. Want to see it on paper? JPay would like $1.50 for the service of generating a PDF that shows his account balance. Oh, and they’ll take an extra $2.00 at the end of the month, for the trouble of holding his money.
As it turns out those debit card fees are really really illegal, and JPay had been using them across the country for years. In October 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered JPay to pay a $2 million fine, as well as $4 million to compensate debit card holders who were “harmed by its unfair and abusive acts.”
The CFPB found that JPay abused its market dominance by charging consumers unavoidable fees, illegally required cardholders to receive protected government benefits on their debit cards, charged consumers fees that were not even in their terms of service, and charged fees that were higher than those disclosed to customers in the first place.
According to the consent order, JPay can no longer charge any fees on releasee cards, except for a ninety-day activity fee. But JPay has been under contract with New York State since 2007, not to mention the 21 other states in which it operates. Think about how much they stole from the formerly-incarcerated in those fourteen years.[5] They still provide “Progress Cards” to released New Yorkers today.
The Tablets
New York might be willing to tolerate JPay’s theft if it means they can have tablets. Tablets make DOCCS feel cutting-edge and professional, they keep prisoners entertained and out of trouble, and they provide the sort of unfettered access to prisoners’ communications unavailable through surveillance of physical mail. So, since 2019, as part of the “Incarcerated Individual Tablet Program,” every New York state prisoner gets the “JP5S,” a 7 inch tablet with a clear plastic case and 32GB of storage, courtesy of JPay. Earbuds are included, along with a charger.
JPay’s tablets can hold both pre-loaded and downloadable content, which is delivered through kiosks erected in the common areas of prison facilities. Some content, such as that which assists educational programming, is delivered for free, but the vast majority of the Department-approved music, movies, games, and books is available for purchase only.
Prisoners can purchase content by opening “Kiosk Media Accounts” with JPay, which are separate from the general accounts maintained for prisoners by DOCCS. Tablet purchases can only be made through Kiosk Media Accounts, and JPay charges fees for money transferred in, just as it charges a fee for money transferred from family and friends into general DOCCS accounts. Here’s the schedule of fees for financial transactions involving Kiosk accounts:
| Amount Transferred | Fee |
| $2.00 – $9.99 | $1.75 |
| $10.00 – $19.99 | $2.75 |
| $20.00 – $49.99 | $3.75 |
| $50.00 – $300.00 | $4.75 |
In case you’re keeping track, JPay will have taken a fee on two separate occasions before a state prisoner can even use their money on one of its products. Say, for the purposes of buying a couple of movies on the JPay tablet, a prisoner’s girlfriend sent him $15.00. After being assessed fees for both the external transfer and the transfer to the prisoner’s Kiosk account, the prisoner is left with only $9.10 to spend on those movies, an overall fee of 39.3%.
And the prices for JPay content aren’t cheap either. Individualized pricing models are not available to the public, but JPay’s contract with New York specifies the price ranges it can charge for certain types of media:
| Item Class | Price |
| Songs | $1.00 – $2.50 |
| Albums | $2.00 – $46.00 |
| Games | Free – $7.99 |
| Movie or TV Show Rentals | $2.00 – $25.00 |
| eBooks/Audio Books | Free – $19.99 |
I can’t say for sure which end of these ranges is most common, but it’s safe to assume that JPay isn’t undercutting the market. One report I found suggests that JPay’s music prices are 30% to 50% higher than iTunes, which charges around $1.29 for most popular songs; another quotes prisoners who say nothing on the JPay tablets is actually free—even books in the public domain must be purchased, some of which appear to have been downloaded from Project Gutenberg (a free internet archive) and repackaged for sale on the JPay platform.[6]
Either way, the point is that JPay’s tablets—perhaps the primary draw of their contract with New York—are not a correctional service, but an opportunity for profit which extracts rents from prisoners and their families. The tablets are portals to a vulnerable population, a literal captive audience of thirty thousand people and their families. And as if the high prices weren’t enough, JPay’s tablets, just like its financial services, are a mechanism for stealing from this population too. Just last year, New York State Attorney General Letitia James reached a settlement with JPay for widespread fraud in their tablet program.
According to the AG’s office: “JPay repeatedly failed to deliver services and often failed to refund individuals when purchased music and videos did not download. A significant number of JPay’s tablets were not functional, leaving individuals unable to fully utilize the items they purchased […] and JPay also failed to quickly address technical issues and left consumers without functioning devices or refunds for extended periods.”
As a result of the settlement, JPay agreed to hire additional support staff, provide around $16 worth of credit to every New York State prisoner, and pay $50,000 in penalties. Following the settlement, a JPay parent company executive issued a press release stating, in part:
“We are grateful to the New York Attorney General for her attention to these issues, and for the work her office does every day for consumers. They help give a voice to incarcerated individuals and play a critical role in boosting accountability across industries that for too long have been insular and unresponsive.”
JPay has reason to be grateful. Reports vary, but the Incarcerated Individual Tablet Program has already brought JPay an estimated $9 million in profits from New York State alone.
E-Messaging
Last, but certainly not least, is JPay’s e-messaging service. Over the last fifteen years, e-messaging has experienced explosive growth in state and federal prisons, creating a hugely-varied carceral landscape of character limits, content restrictions, and of course, pricing structures. JPay’s New York system revolves around “stamps,” which are credit units good for an email of 6,000 characters, or about 1,000 words. (This article is 3708)
New York State prisoners receive a non-rolling allowance of four stamps per month, with larger bundles available for purchase through the fee-laden Kiosk Media Account. Stamps allow inmates to send non-secure messages to a person on the outside’s email address, as well as photos and greeting cards, and they allow people on the outside to send messages, photos, greeting cards, and short video messages, called “VideoGrams,” to state prisoners. All communications into and out of the prison are monitored by corrections officials.
JPay’s e-messaging prices have been reduced since their initial contract with New York State, but they remain fairly high. I’ll provide both price schedules below, simply because past wrongs are no better than present ones:
Initial Pricing
| Item | Price |
| Single Stamp (allowance of 5,000 characters) | $0.35 |
| 10 Stamp Bundle | $3.25 |
| 30 Stamp Bundle | $8.50 |
| 60 Stamp Bundle | $15.00 |
| Picture (Small) | 1 Stamp |
| Picture (Large) / Greeting Card | 2 Stamps |
| VideoGram | 4 Stamps |
Current Pricing
| Item | Price |
| Single Stamp (allowance of 6,000 characters) | $0.20 |
| 10 Stamp Bundle | $2.00 |
| 30 Stamp Bundle | $5.75 |
| 60 Stamp Bundle | $11.00 |
| 100 Stamp Bundle | $15.00 |
| Picture (Small) | 1 Stamp |
| Picture (Large) / Greeting Card | 2 Stamps |
| VideoGram | 4 Stamps |
I won’t beat the dead horse of predatory pricing models—I’m sure you’re convinced that JPay charges too much for everything already. What I want to emphasize here is what exactly JPay is gatekeeping behind its e-messaging service. Charging fees for transfers to an inmate’s commissary account, or the purchase of a TV show, are one thing, but pricing instant communication with the outside world is something else altogether.
How can a prisoner stay in daily contact with his wife? He can pay JPay for the privilege. How can a prisoner see a video message from his son, or watch the surreptitiously captured clip of his daughter’s first steps? He can pay for that too. And how can a doting father send his incarcerated child a birthday card, guaranteed (unlike regular mail) to arrive on time? He can pay JPay for it.
JPay is not shy about this aspect of their service, probably because it’s so lucrative.
JPay’s social media accounts (and more-than-likely their email listservs) advertise on all major holidays, offering free and discounted messages or reminding their customers of the importance of staying in touch. The company also posts flyers and advertisements in state prison anterooms, reminding prisoners and their families of the role it can play in their relationships.
And for the often-poorer families with a loved-one in state prison, the trade-offs for communication can mean impossible choices. As Brian Nelson, who spent twenty-one years in prison, told Time in 2014: “It’s a wife that has three children at home, and her husband is in jail, so now she has a choice: Do I send money to him so he can afford to stay in touch with the kids, or do I feed the kids?”
The Rot
One might justifiably wonder why JPay has a contract with New York, or the 21 other states in which it operates, in the first place. Why exactly does New York State pay JPay $1.4 million every year, especially when it receives no commission from JPay’s immensely lucrative and notoriously unreliable services?
According to a 2016 article in the New York Daily News, Norman Seabrook, former head of the State’s Corrections Officers Benevolent Association, had something to do with it. The Daily News cites multiple sources within the State corrections apparatus, alleging that Seabrook pushed hard to award the no-bid contract to JPay in 2007. Letitia James, then New York City’s Public Advocate, was quoted arguing that the contract “raises very serious legal and ethical concerns,” and publicly accused the company of violating state bribery laws.
Two years later, Seabrook was indicted by the Department of Justice for accepting a $60,000 bribe from Murray Huberfeld, a hedge fund executive with close ties to JPay founder Ryan Shapiro.[7] Seabrook pled guilty to accepting the bribe in return for an investment of $20 million of corrections officer pension funds in Huberfeld’s hedge fund, which lost $19 million of the original investment only months later. Seabrook was sentenced to fifty-eight months in federal prison.
Nobody in another state’s corrections apparatus has been as clumsy as Seabrook, but make no mistake, JPay’s effort to wrest business from its competitors is a nationwide offensive. According to the Center for Public Integrity, JPay spends heavily on corrections industry conventions and events, providing amenities for officials like lavish parties with open bars, hand-rolled cigars, and, in at least one case, “a live mariachi band.” JPay also sponsored for years an Association of State Correctional Administrators award for former officers which included all-expenses-paid travel and a custom crystal bowl.
Despite the fact that JPay’s state contracts often ban the use of fee revenue for lobbying, JPay has hired legislative and procurement lobbyists in at least seven states and retained notable beltway figures to push its products on state and federal prison systems. More recently, in an effort to work arounds the regulations, JPay’s parent company has been lobbying on its behalf, hiring nearly a dozen suits from two K-Street firms to push favorable legal frameworks in the halls of Congress and BOP.
I’ll leave things there for now, with just a few closing thoughts. First, is that JPay is a specific type of corporation that our economy tends to breed: a parasite with no logic beyond rent-seeking and monopoly. Over the last 20 years, JPay has become a multi-million dollar nationwide leader in prison financial services and technology, yet the services they provide are faulty, more costly than comparable competitors, and exploitative of very people they are intended to serve. JPay is more expensive to state prisons than in-house alternatives, but they’ve lobbied and they’ve bribed and they’ve stayed under the radar, so people have got to pay them and they can make out like bandits. There’s no reason that a company like JPay should exist. But it does, because our economy and our political system allow it.
Second, is my answer to a question I know you have. How does nobody know about this? It’s right there in the open.
The answer is straightforward: the general public does not care about prisoners and their families, and they are sufficiently politically powerless for the government to ignore them. Even after recent years, when criminal legal politics changed with abandon, people are still more comfortable hating cops than they are with loving prisoners. Even movement types, unless a family member has been in, are unlikely to know what JPay is.
And there’s one other answer, which is inconvenient but true. If JPay ever loses its government contracts, I don’t think it’ll be due to lefty outcry or conventional political pressure; it’ll be because DOCCS thinks they cost too much, or a cheaper alternative arrives. For prison abolitionists, getting rid of JPay qualifies as reform, the sort of thing we don’t do because we want to focus on destroying the prison industrial complex as a whole. That’s a problem and it bothers me, even though I understand the logic. If even for us, JPay is small potatoes compared to the greater injustice, is there a realistic chance that the political system will make it go away? Or will JPay and its progeny continue to exploit, continue to steal, continue to get rich off people the carceral system already grinds down?
I don’t know the answer, but I do know that issues like JPay matter to people in prison, and so I think they should matter to their advocates too. We can’t reform the system, but we can put money back in people’s pockets, or at least demand our government stop paying a corporation to steal from them. Let’s hope, at bare minimum, that this year’s contract with JPay is New York State’s last.
[1] JPay is not, of course, the only company providing services to the state and federal prison systems, though it is the company used by 22 of the 43 states that have such contracts. The other market giant is Global Tel*Link (GTL), or “ViaPath.” Together, these two companies serve 81% of the prison e-messaging market.
[2] The case was later dropped by federal prosecutors after the man who provided Mr. Shapiro with insider information backed out of his agreement to testify.
[3] Families also have the option of using Western Union, for a flat fee of $4.00, but it’s not exactly a convenient alternative. JPay can take weeks to deposit money-orders in inmate accounts.
[4] Releasee debit cards also hold the balance of an incarcerated person’s assets upon their release, if they have any.
[5] New York’s contract with JPay includes two separate pricing schedules for releasee debit cards, presumably to include pre-consent decree and post-consent decree fee allowances.
[6] JPay seems to have eliminated books bearing markings from Project Gutenberg after the organization, in response to the linked article, promised to investigate.
[7] As a fun little aside, this is how the DOJ describes the bribe in its press-release: “[Hedge Fund Executive] went to one of SEABROOK’s favorite stores, Salvatore Ferragamo on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and bought an expensive men’s handbag for SEABROOK. [The Executive] put the money in the bag, and met SEABROOK a few blocks away in SEABROOK’s COBA sport utility vehicle with tinted windows, where he handed SEABROOK the bag.” Corrupt officials: they’re just like us!