 |
|
|
|||||
It was the Fourth of July, and I was in my Sing Sing cell, sweating in the heat, perched on the edge of my bunk with my feet dunked in a bucket of cold sink water. What really had me burning, though, was that the Wi-Fi had been down in my block for three days. I couldnt use my tablet to reach my friend and publicist, Megan, who handles my outside email and edits. With my brain boiling, I could hardly write; I usually work in the drafts folder of the messaging app, and now I was locked out. Before the Wi-Fi cut outI heard a wire melted during a recent heat waveId received a couple of messages: interview questions about my forthcoming book, The Tragedy of True Crime, and edits on some other freelance stories. Now, whenever I punched in my password, a message popped up: This device is not connected to the system. The shouts from the tiers above and below made it clear the outage wasnt just me. That was a relief: In the past, my messages were often delayed for what I assumed was extra scrutiny, a reminder of what it means to be a prison journalist. I could try the phones in the yard, but that would mean navigating the gangs who monopolize them when the Wi-Fi goes out. When I got locked up almost 24 years ago, I never imagined wed one day have Wi-Fi inside. In 2019, the prison communications company Securus installed kiosks across all New York facilities and issued every prisoner a clear, 6-inch tablet (imagine a clunky, low-grade iPad). By 2024, the kiosks were mostly abandoned, and our tablets had been upgraded with Wi-Fi that let us send messages and make phone calls from our cellsthough the internet itself remained off-limits. I have a love-hate relationship with Securus. The technology, janky as it is, has helped me grow as a journalist. At the same time, Securus is sustained by the families and friends of people in prison, and activists have pushed for more regulation and free communications. If corporations can profit off us, we should at least be able to use the same tools to earn income legally. Writing is one way, but there arent many freelancers working inside. There is plenty of ambition, though, and plenty of time; why not let guys work phone-based jobs, like telemarketing? Still, its unrealistic to expect the state to provide this technology free of charge. Yo, I think the Wi-Fi is done for the weekend, Macho, my workout partner, told me at the pull-up bar in the yard on that hot July afternoon. They aint coming to fix it on a holiday. The day before, Securus technicians had fixed the Wi-Fi in other cellblocks, and I told Macho I was sure theyd be in ours next. When he asked why, I answered: Because Securus only cares about profit. Time is money; every hour the Wi-Fi is out, theyre losing money. Communication is big business on the prison black market, too. Contraband cell phones, mostly iPhones, are everywhereoften smuggled in by correction officers (COs) and sold to prisoners. Eighteen hundred dollars on Cash App will get you one. And no wonder: online access is the closest we can get to freedom. But if youre caughtand most areyoure sent to solitary and transferred to another prison. As much as an iPhone might make my work easier, Ive never bought one. Thats not to say I havent been curious. A few years back, a friend gave me a glimpse of the connected life, pulling up my articles on his iPhone (Id never seen my work appear on Google before) and later loaning me the device, which sent me into a frenzy of scrolling, swiping, and searching. Fumbling through the phone, I felt a kind of cognitive dissonance: lost, navigating iOS without a map, and paranoid, peeking out through my cell bars for patrolling COs. Its complicated to reconcile my outside identity as a law-abiding prison journalist, which seems respected, with my inside identity as a convict, which is always under suspicion. The anxiety I felt using an iPhone, even for just a few minutes, made me realize it wasnt worth the portal it opened. A cell becomes an office I wasnt too keyed into the 90s dot-com era. Flirting with girls in AOL chat rooms wasnt my thing. I never owned a computer, never opened a Word document, and never sent an email. Instead, I was running the streets, selling drugs, and partying in nightclubs. The only technology that interested me was whatever could help me move dope. I gave my dealers Nextel phones with the push to talk feature, like walkie-talkies. Id heard the Feds had a harder time recording radio frequencies. (I never did manage to confirm whether that was true.) In 2001, at 24, I shot and killed a friend-turned-foe and was soon arrested, tried, and sentenced to 28 years to life. I had a ninth-grade education, but I was still ambitious. At first, life inside tracked pretty close to the one Id had outside: I got in trouble, did drugs, and bounced around different prisons (common for people serving long sentences). In 2007, I landed in Attica, New Yorks most notorious maximum-security prison. There, I met an engineer who had killed his wife and was finishing up his 20-year sentence. He told me the world would make huge technological advances while I was in prison, allowing people to create new identities online. Despite being wrapped in 30-foot walls, he said, I too could build an online presence. But I had to figure out who I wanted to become. By the 2010s, while the outside world made massive technological leaps, we prisoners limped into the 21st century with our typewriters, 8-tracks, and Walkmans. At Attica, I took a creative writing workshop and mailed out an essay that wound up in The Atlantic. That break showed me a path forward. I could become a freelance journalist from the joint. There was no law against it, and many federal judges, adhering to the First Amendment, have ruled that prison writers have a right to publish and even earn income from their work. I began publishing regularly. My 6-by-9-foot cell became my office. I practiced personal journalism, drawn to first-person storytelling that brought readers inside the world I lived in. [Photo: Bettmann / Contributor/Getty Images] Id observe the action and interview colorful characters in the yard, then write in my cell, sitting on an upturned bucket and tapping out stories on a Swintec typewritera clear plastic machine (prison officials prefer see-through electronics because theyre easier to search for contraband). It had a 7,000-character memory, which worked for short articles but got tricky as assignments grew longer. I had to print out the early pages, delete them to free up space, then continue with the next section. I mailed manuscripts to helpers on the outsideeditors, studentswho forwarded them to magazine editors. When pieces were accpted and revised, my helpers snail-mailed the edits back. I reworked essays and, whenever I was on deadline, dictated changes over the phone in the yard. When I transferred to Sing Sing in 2016, the cells were smaller. The cellblocks, like the madhouse of B Block with its open tiers stacked five stories high (where Im currently writing this), were even louder. Swingtec Clear Cabinet typewriter [Photo: Swingtec] In 2019, Securus tablets came to New York prisons. They were given to us for free, but everything on them cost money. Messages, capped at 6,000 characters, were about 15 cents each. Individual songs cost $1.99. New movies, like Captain America: Brave New World, ran $8.99 to rent (Megan tells me she can rent it on Amazon Prime for $5.99). Thirty-minute phone calls from New York prisons cost about a dollar. The tablets exposed the class divide in here: the haves built up song catalogs in the hundreds or even thousands, while the have-nots couldnt afford to message or call anyone. I guess that mirrors American society. At first, I was excited about the technology, but it turned out to be useless to me. My messagesboth incoming and outgoingwere held up for weeks. None of the men around me had this problem. When I asked the Sing Sing superintendent why he was holding my messages, he said he wasnt. I kept working on the typewriter and navigating the phones. The business of staying connected Heres the lay of the land with these prison communications companies. As Bianca Tylek writes in the book The Prison Industry, ViaPath (which owns GettingOut) and Aventiv Technologies (which owns Securus and JPay) form a duopoly that controls 80% of the $1.5 billion prison communications market. Their products for prisoners include phone calls, tablets, and video calls. For corrections agencies, they offer a suite of surveillance tools: live monitoring, recording, transcription, and storage of phone calls; remote access to tablets; and alerts when certain words are used. These two companies contract with nearly every correctional agency at the state, county, and federal levels, and the size of their kickbacksmoney agencies earn from our communicationsdepends on how willing public officials are to allow price gouging. While New York limits how far Securus can go with its rates, officials running jails and prisons in the South have allowed the company to charge detainees as much as $14 for a 15-minute phone call. Securus also charges families fees to send moneyit costs $5 for each transfer, with a $300 capto buy the overpriced items on tablets and at the commissary. The prison money-transfer market exceeds $100 million per year. According to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, one-third of families with an incarcerated relative go into debt trying to stay in touch. Thats why reform advocates have been pressuring these companies for years to lower their rates. In 2023, Worth Rises and other advocacy organizations successfully lobbied Congress to pass the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act, requiring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate prison phone rates. In July 2024, the FCC voted to implement new rules in line with the bipartisan bill, including caps on phone call pricing and a ban on most kickbacks to corrections agencies. Yet on June 30, the FCC announced a two-year postponement of those rules, allowing excessive pricing to continue until at least April 2027. (In a statement sent to Fast Company, Securus emphasized that the company’s tablets and services play a role in rehabilitation and reentry. “We believe a fair and sustainable regulatory framework must balance affordability with the vital investments needed for security and technology, the statement reads. “As the industry leader, Securus engaged with the FCC during the Martha Wright-Reed rulemaking process. We have complied with the resulting order while also challenging it in court alongside 18 State Attorneys General.” The statement adds that where states dont publicly fund calls, it must charge rates that cover the cost of providing and maintaining technology and security infrastructure.) As I was working on this piece in July, New York State Prison Commissioner Daniel Martuscello sent an announcement via our tablets: starting August 1, all phone calls in the states facilities would be free. Unlike in Massachusetts, where free calls came through legislation, Martuscello negotiated directly with Securus and will allot $9 million per year from the $3.58 billion corrections budget to cover the cost. That money goes to Securus. So far, the transition has been seamless. But with more calls being made in the block, connections now drop more frequently, and the audio quality is worse. Still, the free calls have lifted a burden from families and friends. Its a clear win for Worth Rises and other advocates. And yet, without Securus providing the infrastructure in the states 42 prisonsWi-Fi and tablets issued to every prisonerthis move to free calls could have caused chaos if wed been forced to rely on the limited landline phones in the yard. A screenshot of Megan Posco’s edits sent to the author in a Securus message. [Screenshot: Megan Posco] In the summer of 2020, I transferred from Sing Sing to Sullivan Correctional Facility, a smaller maximum-security prison in the Catskills. There, most of my messages started going through. I spent $15 on a rubber keyboard made by Securus and began typing my pitches and works-in-progress in the drafts folder of the email app, which had spell check and let me cut and paste. Whenever my tablet dieda couple of times a yearI was issued a new one, minus my drafts, losing thousands of words of work. There wasnt a hard drive, and the data wasnt saved to the cloudfor us to access, at least. Securus provides corrections agencies with mountains of data on us, enabling them to monitor our communications; this is perhaps the main reason agencies welcome the technology. Whenever I dictate my writing over the phone, sometimes reading sentences that describe my past criminal behavior or one of my subjects crimes, I worry the AI-powered monitoring will pick up words like gang, gun, or killing and use them out of context to keep me in prison. The tech isnt perfect on the other side, either. Whenever Megan gets an error message in the Securus app on her iPhone, she tries to figure out if its a system-wide outage. Her first stop is downforeveryoneorjustme.com/securusa site she tells me she has saved in her favoritesto check if its reporting an issue. Shell also go to the r/PrisonWives subreddit and sort by new; if others cant connect, there will inevitably be a post titled, Does anyone know if Securus is down? Messaging under watch At Sullivan, each cellblock had an octagonal shape with two tiers, and cells that wrapped around a common area with tables and seats bolted to the floor. During evening recreation, men watched TV, played chess, and talked on four phones. The line for the one kiosk in the common area often created chaos. We were limited to five syncs a day, and guys argued over who skipped the line. Whenever I needed to send a message during the day, before evening rec, I would ask prison porters, who mopped and buffed the cellblock floors, to sync my tablet for me. Being out of their cells while the rest of us were locked in was a perk of the job. Over the years, my guy was Cracker Thug (his nickname, tattooed across his belly). I paid him a pack of Newports every week. Technically, thats against the rules. One day in April 2021, Cracker Thug synced my tablet, sending out a message I had written to a magazine editor. Soon after, I received a misbehavior report for using the kiosk during non-recreation hours. I had been infraction-free for years. It felt retaliatory. No one else got written up around that time. At the disciplinary hearing, I received seven days loss of yard privileges. Soon after, I got a book deal. A couple of years earlier, I had been featured on a true-crime show called Inside Evil With Chris Cuomo. I was duped into participating, and the result was a cheesy episode titled “Killer Writing.” It made me think more deeply about the stories we tell about crime and punishment in America, and I soon became a critic of the lurid genre, calling out writers and producers for capitalizing on so much trauma. But I also felt I could do a better job telling these stories about the lives of people in prison, and, if possible, portray us as more than murderers. This is what I explained to Ryan, an editor at Celadon Books, when I called him from the common area in the cellblock. It was shower time. Men yelled. Walkie-talkies crackled off the hips of officers. I assured Ryan that the Securus tablet would help me deliver the book. He made an offer, and I accepted. In a dark corner of the Sullivan cellblock, I tapped out the 100,000-word manuscript on the rubber keyboard. This was before we got Wi-Fi, before the ability to make calls from our cells, so I negotiated the phone line in the yard to call my sources and talk through edits with Megan and my research assistant, Mattthe two people Ive spoken to almost daily for the past four years. The editing system Megan, Matt, and I developed felt like a covert ops missive. We suspected the Securus algorithm flagged certain words and rerouted those messages to the facility lieutenant, so we started disguising themreplacing letters with a star (m*rder) or a special character (kîlled) to avoid detection. I could send a message like the one below, and Megan and Matt would know exactly what edits I wanted: Stefan owned // ADD: S & T Famous Bags, // a store on Kings Highway, in Brooklyn, … A COUPLE GRAFS DOWN //CUT: The story// Stefan told // CUT: people, including // his friend who owned the Park Slope brownstone //CUT : , was // that he was a friend … GOOD A COUPLE GRAFS DOWN After Shane took a shower . . . But it was a small thing, and Stefan criticized the way Shane was doing it, and that sent Shane into // CUT: a spiral// ADD a dark and empty place. // By the end of 2024, Governor Kathy Hochul closed Sullivan, citing the states declining prison population, and I was sent back to Sing Sing. It was one of the first New York prisons to get the Wi-Fi upgrade. Now we can send and receive messages and make phone calls from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Instead of beefing over the kiosk in the block to sync or fighting for a half-hour on the yard phones, men can call from their cells all day long. Aside from paying a premium for certain products, were not the ones most victimized; our families are. Im glad the people who didnt make the choices that landed us here no longer have to shoulder the cost of expensive calls. The tablets also come loaded with free education programs, and if we want music, movies, or games, thats up to us to buy. That choice alone carries a small sense of freedom. If Im not the harshest critic of Securus, maybe its because Ive seen firsthand how the tech can make us more productive. And heres the thing: If private companies are allowed to profit off us, then we should also be allowed to use the same tech to earn money consulting, freelancing, and doing real work. Society should want us better prepared for release. Guys I mentor inside have already used the tablets to break into freelance journalism. From their cells, they publish articles, earn income, pay taxes, even send money home to help their kids. For most, though, the tablets are just a distraction from the monotony. There arent many writers in the joint. I wonder what else men could do with this tech to make a little money. Maybe I could do some telemarketing over the phone in my cell so I can earn a few dollars, Macho, my workout partner, told me. Beats bothering my girl with phone calls all day. Late in the afternoon on July 4, the cellblock came alive. Yo, Wi-Fi is back on. Lets go! a random voice yelled. Another added: Fuck Securus! I told you so! I shouted down to Macho before calling Megan, eager for updates and relieved I wouldnt miss my deadline. The block quickly returned to its usual maddening din: hundreds of men yelling tier to tier, others glued to thir phones.
Category:
E-Commerce
Inflation rose last month as the price of gas, groceries, hotel rooms and airfares rose, along with the cost of clothes and used cars.Consumer prices increased 2.9% in August from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Tuesday, up from 2.7% the previous month and the biggest increase since January. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 3.1%, the same as in July. Both figures are above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.The reading is the last the Fed will receive before its key meeting next week, when policymakers are widely expected to cut their short-term rate to about 4.1% from 4.3%. Still, the new inflation data underscores the challenges the Fed is facing as it experiences relentless pressure from President Donald Trump to cut rates. Inflation remains stubborn while the job market is weakening, diverging trends that would require polar reactions from Federal Reserve policymakers to address.Hiring has slowed sharply in recent months and was lower than previously estimated last year. The unemployment rate ticked up in August to a still-low 4.3%. And weekly unemployment claims rose sharply last week, the government also reported Thursday, a sign layoffs may be picking up.Typically the Fed would cut its key rate when unemployment rose to spur more spending and growth. Yet it would do the opposite and raise rates or at least keep them unchanged in the face of rising inflation. Last month, Chair Jerome Powell signaled that Fed officials are increasingly concerned about jobs. Yet stubbornly high inflation could keep the Fed from cutting very quickly.On a monthly basis, overall inflation accelerated, as prices rose 0.4% from July to August, faster than the 0.2% pace the previous month. Core prices rose 0.3% for the second straight month.Gas prices jumped 1.9% just from July to August, the biggest monthly increase since a 4% rise in December. Grocery prices climbed 0.6%, pushed higher by more expensive tomatoes, apples, and beef. The cost of travel soared, with air fares rising 5.9% just from July to August and hotel room prices rising 2.3%. Rental costs also increased, rising 0.4%, faster than the previous month.The impact of tariffs appeared to be mixed, with many imported goods rising in price but modestly. Clothing costs rose 0.5% just last month, though they are still just slightly more expensive than a year ago. Furniture costs rose 0.3% and are 4.7% higher than a year earlier. Appliance costs also rose from July to August, after falling the previous month.The inflation data arrives at the same time that Trump has sought to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook as part of an effort to assert more control over the Fed. Yet late Tuesday, a court said the firing was illegal and ruled that Cook could keep her job while the dispute played out in the courts. Christopher Rugaber, AP Economics Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
Supermarket chain Safeway is reportedly planning close 12 of its stores in the coming weeks. The grocer, which is a subsidiary of Albertsons Companies, currently operates over 900 stores across the United States. But Safeway will shutter the doors at some locations in Colorado, Nebraska, and New Mexico. Ten of the planned store closures are in Colorado. Meanwhile, one store in Nebraska and one store in New Mexico will also close, according to a list compiled by USA Today. Albertsons attributes the closures to store performance. “We continuously evaluate the performance of our stores, and occasionally, after long and careful deliberation, it becomes necessary to make the difficult decision to close certain locations,” Albertsons said in a statement to USA Today. “We are working to place affected associates in nearby stores wherever possible. Fast Company contacted Albertsons to confirm this list. We will update this story if we hear back. Which stores are closing? The following Safeway locations will reportedly close on or before November 7: 201 E. Jefferson, Englewood, Colorado 80113 500 E. 120th Ave, Northglenn, Colorado 80233 1653 S. Colorado Blvd., Denver, Colorado 80222 12200 E. Mississippi, Aurora, Colorado 80012 3657 S. College Ave, Fort Collins, Colorado 80525 860 Cleveland Ave., Loveland, Colorado 80537 5060 North Academy Blvd., Colorado Springs, Colorado 80918 1425 S. Murray Blvd., Colorado Springs, Colorado 80916 315 W. 2nd St., La Junta, Colorado 81050 906 E. Olive St., Lamar, Colorado 81052 230 Morehead Street, Chadron, Nebraska 69337 730 W. Main St., Farmington, New Mexico 87401 Retail store closures are a growing trend Retail closures continue to be a growing trend. Fast Company has been following what many have branded as the retail apocalypse nationwide, which has impacted retailers like At Home, Claires, and Rite Aid. Many familiar retailers have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as they restructure their businesses and reduce their brick-and-mortar footprints. Some chains, such as fabrics retailer Joann, have winded down operations completely. Safeway isnt the only grocery store reducing its brick-and-mortar footprint. In its first-quarter earnings report in June 2024, Kroger announced plans to shutter 60 of its stores by mid-2026. The news of Kroger and Safeway store closures comes on the heels of a failed merger. In October 2022, Kroger reached an agreement to acquire Albertsons for $25 billiona move that would have created one of the largest grocery chains in the United States. However, in 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to block the merger, alleging that it would lead to higher prices and eliminate competition. Federal and state judges ruled that the merger was unlawful, and both companies terminated the agreement. Grocery store closings contribute to food deserts Grocery store closures impact local communities. In addition to job losses, closures result in reduced access to food. Supermarket store closures contribute to food deserts, a term used to describe areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. According to recent data from the USDAs Food Access Research Atlas, an estimated 18.8 million people in the United States, or 6.1% of the U.S. population, live in areas with limited access to healthy foods. Organizations like Feeding America work to reduce food insecurity.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||