Good on Michael Siebel and YC (and everyone else mentioned in the article) for supporting Hutson. Companies like JPay and Securus are awful, awful businesses that prey on the families of incarcerated people.

There's a lot of evidence to that visitation and a reliable social network are key factors in improving outcomes for paroled and released prisoners, and lowering the rates of recidivism. Anything that makes it easier to maintain relationships between people in prison and those outside the prison who love them pays of a huge social dividend. We really need to reverse the trend of recent years towards making visitation and other forms of prisoner contact much more expensive and difficult in the name of 'security.'