Welcome to the InmateAid Blog

Why are jail phone calls so expensive?

BY TYLER KENDALL OCTOBER 13, 2020 / CBS When you ask Shawn Barrera-Leaf how long her 27-year-old son, Gabe, has been incarcerated, she responds with precise accuracy. "Nine-hundred and seventy-five days," she told CBS News last month. Barrera-Leaf, 57, has been...

Wine distributor gets 2 years in prison for fraud scheme involving 'Shark Tank' product

Joseph Falcone, 60, formerly operated the 3G's VINO LLC, a wine and liquor distributor based in Bethpage and Farmingdale, New York October 11, 2020 A former wine and liquor distributor was sentenced to 24 months in prison on Friday for using the show "Shark Tank"...

A prison video visitation service exposed private calls between inmates and their attorneys

Thousands of calls were spilling from an unprotected server. HomeWAV, a prison video visitation tech company, exposed thousands of phone calls between inmates and their families, but also calls with their attorneys that were supposed to be protected by attorney-client...

California kept prison factories open. Inmates worked for pennies an hour as COVID-19 spread

Robbie Hall earned 60 cents an hour sewing masks at a factory in a women’s prison in Chino. She was hospitalized with a serious case of COVID-19 in May after an outbreak there. (Illustration by Alex Tatusian / Los Angeles Times) By Kiera Feldman - LA Times OCT. 11, 2020 While...