Money-Making Schemes That Ensnare Prisoners and Their Families
If you believe the advertisements mailed to federal prisoners across the country, getting out of prison early is as simple as paying thousands of dollars to the right person.
Early release scams are rampant in prisons, experts say, as opportunists recognize the desperate and captive market they have in incarcerated people and their families. Word of each new company travels fast in the prison gossip mill, and those inside have few resources to adequately vet claims.
New schemes often pop up when there are changes to federal criminal law, prisoner advocates say. Several companies and individuals in the past year have peddled dubious strategies to win inmates’ release under the recently-passed First Step Act, for example.
Shon Hopwood, a formerly incarcerated lawyer and professor at Georgetown Law School, remembers
