From: dannyb@panix.com   
      
   [the appeal]   
      
   The Slow Death of a Prison Profiteer: How Activism Brought Securus to the   
   Brink   
      
   On the hook to repay $1.3 billion of debt this year, the nation's   
   largest prison telecom company, Securus, is on the verge of bankruptcy.   
   Its failure would represent a remarkable victory for advocates - and a   
   potential beginning of the end for the industry as we know it.   
      
   Dana Floberg, Morgan Duckett   
   Apr 04, 2024   
      
   Last week, the nation's largest prison and jail telecom corporation,   
   Securus, effectively defaulted on more than a billion dollars of debt.   
   After decades of preying on incarcerated people and their loved ones with   
   exploitative call rates and other predatory practices that have driven   
   millions of families into debt, Securus is being crushed under the weight   
   of its own. In March, the company's creditors gave the corporation an   
   eight-month extension to pay up, urging its sale to a new owner to stave   
   off an otherwise imminent bankruptcy.   
      
   Securus is one of two corporations that dominate roughly 80 percent of the   
   U.S. prison telecom industry, forming an effective duopoly that thrives on   
   the captive markets found inside the nation's lockups. Both companies   
   are owned by private-equity firms: Securus, by Platinum Equity, and   
   ViaPath (previously Global Tel Link), by American Securities.   
      
   The slow death of the largest player in this space is not accidental. It   
   follows six years of intense advocacy to expose the vulnerability of the   
   prison telecom industry's business model on both ethical and economic   
   grounds. Organizers have waged a strategic war against Securus, educating   
   investors and the public about the company's predatory practices while   
   successfully advocating for legislation and regulation to rein them in.   
            =======   
   rest:   
   https://theappeal.org/securus-bankruptcy-prison-telecom-industry/   
   _____________________________________________________   
   Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key   
    		     dannyb@panix.com   
   [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)