Darkoshi

Good simple overview:
Consumer Reports: A Simple Guide For Contacting Your Local Lawmakers (And What To Say To Them)


It sounds so easy.

But then I think, and I get uncertain.

What happens if you call after working hours, when no one is present to take the call? Do you get prompted to leave a message, or to call back?

If I call and speak to someone, or if I leave a message, will my voice be clear enough for them to easily understand? What if I flub my words or message?
Would it be better for me to send an email (or paper mail) after all?

If there are multiple bills or topics you want to voice your opinion on, is it better to call (or mail or email) separately for each one to avoid confusion? Do they keep track of how many times each person contacts them, and do they give you less credence if you contact them multiple times?

I wonder if the lawmaker's aides who handle this stuff are honest enough to keep accurate records of what constituents ask them to support or oppose. Perhaps some simply ignore messages with viewpoints opposed to what the lawmaker or they themselves support.

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I could just call up right now and at least get an answer to the first question.
But I need to verify who my representative is; this is state-government-level. I think I know who it is, but need to make sure.
Oh god maybe later I have to do something else now.

I got a mailing from Nielsen, the radio & TV survey company. It had a round plastic window on the back of the envelope showing a dollar bill inside. There were actually two dollar bills inside! For filling out and returning a short 16 question survey, they say they'll send you another $5.

The end of the survey says "Please provide all the information below, and we'll send you $5 cash!", and then has fields for name and address, AND for a phone number. Along with fine print, "By providing your phone number, you agree that our research associates may contact you to discuss further research opportunities. For efficiency and accuracy, we may dial your phone number using an automatic telephone dialing system and we may leave pre-recorded reminder messages."

I hate those automated dialers, and 90% of the time I don't even pick up the phone any more if the calling number isn't in my contacts. My voicemail greeting says so, and says to either leave a message or send me a text. 95% of the time, they don't.

Anyway, I'm wary of giving Nielsen my phone number, so I'm leaving it blank, and I'm curious whether I'll still get the $5 or not. We shall see! They didn't ask for an email address.

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Update, 2021/03/15:
While walking thru the neighborhood today, I found another mailing like the one sent to me, lying on the ground. As the address was on the street I was walking on, I picked it up and took it to their mailbox. I stuck it behind the mailbox flag.

The backside of the mailing had a round plastic window like mine, but there were no dollar bills visible in it. I suspect someone stole it from their mailbox to take the money out for themselves and then tossed it on the ground. But the envelope flap was closed and I didn't notice any slits or tears in the envelope. So I'm not sure. Maybe Nielsen tries out different types of mailings to see which get the best response? (When searching about it before, I'd read where someone posted that they'd gotten a $5 bill in their original mailing, whereas I'd only gotten $2.)

I hope whoever lives at that house wasn't looking out their window at me, so they won't think that I'm the person who stole their money.

While walking on another street, I'd seen another mailing (not from Nielsen) on the street. But the address on it was far from this neighborhood. Who knows how it ended up here. I didn't want to carry it all the way with me for the rest of my walk to then put it in my mailbox for redelivery, so I left it there for someone else to hopefully find.

Got a message on my answering machine with a guy's voice saying they need people for a one-day "focus group" which pays $250, with breakfast and lunch provided. It didn't even sound like a recording, though it probably was. He left a phone number for calling him back.

I've never gotten a message quite like that before, and couldn't tell if it was a scam. Focus Group? What could that be, and why would they pay that much money for it? I've got a job, so I'm not interested, but maybe my mom or niece would be.

So I looked online, and found a Craigslist ad for the same thing. It links to nelsonrecruiting dot com, which seems like a legitimate company for that kind of thing.

While looking up about focus groups, I came across the term "mock jury". I hadn't heard of that before either, so I looked it up. Apparently, if you're rich, not only can you hire a good lawyer to defend you, but your lawyers can hire people to act as mock juries, to find out which arguments are most likely to help them win their case. Sigh.

I was reading about Kalief Browder, who at the age of 16 was incarcerated for 3 years in New York after having been accused of a robbery which he denied committing. Due to backlogs in the court system and multiple delays requested by the prosecutors, he never even got to have a trial during that whole time. During his imprisonment, he was beaten by guards and fellow inmates, and spent a lot of time in solitary confinement. He was finally released after prosecutors admitted that they had lost contact with the man who had accused him of the crime. After being released, Kalief suffered mental illness and ended up committing suicide two years later.

2 years and 10 months after being jailed, a judge had offered to release Kalief based on the time he had already served, if he plead guilty to two misdemeanors. Kalief refused. How many other people, even if innocent, would refuse that? How many people, after having been wrongly jailed for almost 3 years and having a chance to finally go free, would trust the system enough to want to risk being wrongly convicted and incarcerated for another 10 years? And yet, pleading guilty will result in a criminal record, and will make it difficult for you to get a job or to get an apartment for the rest of your life, and will make people think that you got what you deserved (rather than recognizing the horrible injustice you suffered). You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

And that is only one small aspect of how our criminal justice system is not working like it should.

Innocent until proven guilty is a myth, isn't it?

How many innocent people are jailed or put to death?
How much racial disparity is there in arrests and convictions?
How many people commit minor misdemeanors and end up having to pay huge fees and court costs?
How does our justice system reform criminals? How many people who serve time are actually less likely to commit another crime afterwards, versus more likely?
How many people who commit crimes aren't ever even charged, convicted, or jailed?
How much likelier is it for you to have access to a good defense attorney and to be exonerated of a crime, when you are rich versus poor?
If you are convicted of a serious crime, how likely is it for you to be released before you've served your whole sentence, because keeping you in prison costs too much?
When the government hands over the running of prisons to private companies who are only interested in making money, how can we ensure that these companies uphold minimum standards and respect the inmates' human rights?
How can we expect people who have served their time to move on to a law-abiding life, when their criminal record makes it hard for them to get a job? Yet, can you blame people for not wanting to hire ex-cons? Especially when the criminal justice system isn't focused on reforming criminals, but rather on punishing them and turning them into more hardened criminals?

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I was reading about VoIP. Neither VoIP nor cell-phones allow you to receive incoming collect calls. That must make it difficult for a lot of inmates to call home. If their friends and family can't afford land-lines, how can the inmates call home? I did a search and found that there is a service that allows you to get a phone number whereby collect calls can be redirected to your cellphone or VoIP phone number. The website doesn't at all mention how much this service costs, which makes me think that it must be expensive.

I was further struck by this entry in the website FAQ:

If the prison specifically prohibits calls to cell phones, third-party or relayed calls, can I still us Just Talk?

Yes. Just Talk has a VOIP service that can offer significant savings while still complying with prison regulations prohibiting calls to cell phones, for third-party or relayed calls, such as the Arizona Department of Corrections order 1.4.2.

So most prisons only allow outgoing collect calls, but some also restrict you from using this kind of service to call a cell phone? Why??? I looked up information on these Arizona Dept. of Corrections rules.

The document indicates:
Inmates may not have a telephone card or cell phone and do not have access to email.
Inmates may only call people on their visitation list - this list may contain up to 20 people.
Before any of these people are allowed to visit or be called, they have to submit an application and be approved, a process which takes 40 to 60 days and requires a $25 background check fee.
These are not allowed: "Calls that are relayed from the number called to another number (i.e., third party calls), credit card calls and calls to 800 and 900 phone numbers."

In retrospect, I suppose those kind of calls are not allowed as it would be too easy to transfer a cell phone (etc.) to someone *not* on the approved visitation list.

Then I found this 2011 article, Prisons seek ally in crackdown on cellphones. Apparently, a lot of inmates are getting their hands on contraband cell phones. The prisons want to install equipment to block the cell phone signals, so that inmates will be forced to use the official pay phones provided for outgoing calls.

There's another issue. Why can't prisons even prevent inmates from getting their hands on contraband items? How many prison employees are illicitly making money by providing these contraband items to the inmates?
Why can't prisons prevent inmate-on-inmate violence?

I got one of these scam calls this evening. Except that the guy said he was calling from Microtech(?) in San Diego. I don't think he called me by name either.

I played along for a little bit, replying with innocent "Uh-huh..."s to his statements about my computer being infected. I asked him what his salary was. He didn't answer. After a bit more, I said good-bye and wished him a good evening. I have a sweet "Good-bye!" intonation for calls like that.

I wonder if they will call back again. I should remember to record it if they do.