The owner of the Detroit Pistons, billionaire Tom Gores, brought the Pistons back to Detroit because he knows families matter: “I think that everybody felt that without the Pistons, it [Detroit] just wasn’t complete. We were missing the family member,” he told the New York Times.

That’s why Gores should reconsider any plans his company has to acquire prison phone services provider Securus Technologies, which earns its profits exploiting prisoner families.

Gores is CEO of Platinum Equity, an equity firm reportedly negotiating a deal to purchase “the second-largest provider of phone services to U.S. prisoners, for close to $1.5 billion,” according to Reuters.

The investment would undoubtedly prove lucrative: Securus negotiates monopolistic contracts with prisons and jails that allow it to charge astronomical rates and fees to those hoping to reach loved ones behind bars. But the association would also prove toxic: The Pistons are a prized institution in a city that’s struggled with mass incarceration and its corresponding racial and economic disparities.

Gores is an ardent philanthropist who’s pledged to raise $10 million to combat the Flint, Michigan water crisis, and has championed other worthy causes. Neither he nor the Pistons should associate themselves with this potential foul.  

Tell Gores that you care about the Pistons, Detroit, and ending the era mass incarceration, and that Platinum should walk away.