by Madeleine Howe ’22, Contributing Writer
The New York State Department of Corrections recently brought tablets into
prisons for incarcerated people to use for reading, sending email, playing games, listening to music, and more. When done right, bringing technology into prisons can give incarcerated people access to educational resources they might not otherwise have had access to, and make it easier for them to maintain relationships with friends and family outside of prison — both of which are beneficial in that they reduce the risk of recidivism, as studies by the Vera Institute and the U.S. Department of Justice itself have found.
However, with the introduction of new technology into the prison system, other states have taken the opportunity to make even more money from the system at the expense of the wellbeing of incarcerated people. When tablets were introduced to West Virginia prisons, incarcerated people were charged by the minute to use them — 3 to 5 cents to read. While it may not sound like much, the Prison Policy Initiative reports that prison wages in West Virginia typically fall between only 4 and 58 cents an hour. Additionally, the reading material accessible on West Virginia tablets is freely accessible through Project Gutenberg, so the prison system doesn’t even have to pay for the materials.
Some states have also instituted bans on third-party book donations, instead forcing prisoners to buy books through approved sellers and thus diminishing the access incarcerated people have to useful reading materials. Critically though, some states that took this route for other reasons (like Pennsylvania, Washington, and New York) were forced to revert back to accepting donations because of public pressure.
Many country jails across the country have also ended up using technology in a way that could be seen as a detriment to those inside. In the name of safety and efficiency, these county jails have ended access to in-person visitation in favor of video conferencing, which is also paid for by the minute if done from a remote location instead of inside the jail. In Missouri’s Newton County, these calls cost 40 cents a minute when made from home — more expensive than phone calls, which are only 31 cents. While adding video as an option might benefit those incarcerated people whose family are far away from where they are, removing the option of in-person visitation benefits no one, and would likely detract from relationships incarcerated people have to the outside world.
Clair Beazer, writing as someone incarcerated in a Colorado prison in 2008 put it well: “If video visits are an addition they will be a help to all and a godsend to many. But if video visits are a replacement of and for the current visitation their implementation would be a painful unwelcome change that would be impersonal and dehumanizing. Their effect could result in demoralization and that this change could adversely affect recidivism.”
It’s vital to pay attention to new developments in our prison systems and to listen to what incarcerated people have to say about these developments. Many changes like the ones above are framed as measures to improve security when they really do more to make incarcerated people’s lives harder than to make prisons safer. Many of the policies banning book donations and in-person visitation are justified through claims of minimizing contraband when in reality, studies by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition and Prison Policy Initiative have shown that these efforts do little to change security or amounts of contraband entering a prison, as a large amount of contraband entering jails and prisons comes from staff in the first place.
If we amplify the voices of incarcerated people and use our own to influence policy makers, we can guide the adoption of technology in prisons to a place where it can benefit incarcerated people instead of hindering them. At Hamilton College, we have our own important resource that contributes to this: The American Prison Writing Archive (APWA). The archive was created by Professor Doran Larson and publishes essays by currently incarcerated Americans in an effort to combat stereotypes and raise awareness of the realities of life inside of prison.
If interested, you can begin learning more about the first-hand experience of the American prison system by reading from the over 2,100 essays currently in the APWA, or even help the archive by transcribing submitted essays here:
http://apw.dhinitiative.org/content/request-permission-transcribe-apwa-essays
.