4. Prison Constraints

Technological constraints

You cannot have a laptop in prison, nor can you have a cell phone. Most electronic devices are prohibited, but some radios, MP3 and MP4 players and tablets cased in see-through plastic are allowed. Prison-approved devices, however, are often too expensive for incarcerated people to buy. Software service and media prices for accessing content on approved devices also tends to come with exorbitant fees. Two companies that control a lot of the prison tech market – Advanced Technologies Group (AGT) and Securas Technologies – have a huge monopoly with little oversight and engage in predatory financial practices which include giving kickbacks to correctional facilities.

Correctional facilities and their service providers insist that unsupervised digital communication between incarcerated people and the outside world is a huge security risk. While there is a certain logic in prohibiting unregulated cell phones as a security measure against potential violation of prison rules, it does not keep them out and only creates a black market. Contraband cell phones, which sell for up to $2000 apiece (Roth), were the most common hard contraband items recovered in Federal Bureau of Prison (BOP) institutions from 2012 through 2014 (Federal Bureau of Prisons).

In a statement accompanying proposed legislation for deploying new security measures to block cell phone use, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai describes a gory catalog of crimes including hits and extorsion committed from prison with cell phones, stating that finding and removing cell phones is the most dangerous part of a correction officer’s job because “a prisoner will do almost anything to hide and keep a cellphone” (Lecher). Pai implies that all – or at least most - incarcerated people want cell phones for the purpose of committing violent crimes. However, the demand for contraband cell phones may well be driven more by people’s need to be in touch with families and friends than by intentions to carry out criminal activity through the use of cell phones, or by their need to procure a source of income.¹ The argument that communication with people on the outside poses a security threat serves the larger goal of segregating and disempowering entire communities. This end is also served by economic means. If digital services did not carry such prohibitive fees, incarcerated people could have a lot more controlled access to the communications systems than they do now, and prisons would have a lot less contraband.

Tech monopolies

State prisons have contracts with different telecommunications network providers such as Global Tel Link (GTL), which sells email service to incarcerated people. In 2015, GTL controlled 50% of the Inmate Calling Services $1.2 billion telecommunications industry (Wikipedia Contributors, “Global Tel Link”). In federal prisons incarcerated people can communicate with a limited number of pre-approved people by email using Corrlinks software provided by Advanced Technologies Group, L.L.C. (Business Insider)² which “develops and supports software solutions that help state and federal correctional agencies operate more efficiently” and preposterously claims that it “help[s] offenders become more self-reliant and better prepared to re-integrate into society.” Not only does it make money off people who have no choice but to purchase its wares, but also has the gall to advertise its products as something that will help make them better people.

Corrlinks is part of the Keefe Group, which in turn is part of the conglomerate H.I.G. Capital. It is a for-profit company subcontracted by prisons which charges incarcerated people and their families the rates that “the agency” sets (Corrlinks). From commissary to money transfer to communications to withholdings of up to 80% of incarcerated people’s wages, prisons and jails make enough money directly from incarcerated people and their families to fund a significant share of their operations.

Another of the Keefe Group’s lucrative businesses whose margin of profit depends on having huge numbers of people behind bars is Access Securepak, which was an email provider for at least 18 state Departments of Corrections (DOC) in 2014 which, together with Keefe Commisary Network, reported net sales of more than $375 million in 2012 (Eldridge). In addition to electronics, Access Securepak sells food, clothing and personal hygiene products to incarcerated people in DOC facilities and county jails. The electronics available for purchase include televisions, radios, and headphones in clear plastic casings “to eliminate contraband” (Access Securepak).

Another company which makes a huge profit³ on prisons is JPay, a privately held corrections-related service provider holding contracts with state departments of correction, county jails and private federal prisons to provide email, money transfer, video visitation and parole and probation payments to approximately 1.5 million incarcerated people in 35 states. It was started by Ryan Shapiro in New York in 2002 and moved its headquarters to Miami in 2005. Ten years later JPay was bought by Securus Technologies, a prison communications firm that has been criticized for developing phone tracking technologies that can be used outside prisons and for charging very high rates for calls and pushing to mandate the removal of in-person meetings of incarcerated people with their families (Wagner and Jones). JPay was taken on by Senator Cory Booker in 2015 in a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau asking the agency to stop JPay’s predatory practices with prepaid debit cards (Lopez).

The prices of JPay’s digital offerings are outrageous; but given that it operates in what practically amounts to a closed market, JPay is able to charge what it likes. JPay’s’ MP3 player, called the JP3, sells for $39.99 (JPay). Given that a prison wage is 86 cents to $3.45 per day (Sawyer), the JP3 player is unaffordable for most. Songs have to be bought separately and cost on average $1.19 each.

In 2012, JPay launched a tablet, the JP4, which could be used to read and draft emails, play games, and listen to music. In 2015 the JP4 was replaced by the JP5mini for $79.99 and the JP5S for $129.99 (Battacharya). According to CNN Business News, there were 60,000 JP4s in use in 2015 when the JP5 was launched (Battacharya). Only about 4% of the approximately 1.5 million incarcerated people JPay was offering its products to at that time were using its wares.

The JP5 is run on the JPay platform and equipped with a secure bootloader on an Android operating system so no other operating system can be installed (Battacharya). It can be used to send and receive emails (there is a time lapse for screening) for the price of a 40 cent “stamp” (Battacharya). Users can also listen to music and audiobooks (which they have to buy), play games (which they have to buy) and watch movies (which they have to rent or buy). According to JPay, users can also access educational materials and read the daily news, but this depends on whether the prison makes these available. The only free features the JP5 tablet seems to have are a calculator and a stopwatch, and one maze game (JPay).

JPay founder and CEO Ryan Shapiro explained, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, that Jpay “take[s] outside applications, redevelop[s] them for prisons specifically, and then deploy[s] them […] the prison doesn’t pay for any of [their services]; it’s the end user who pays” (Lieber). And, as the JP4 was being launched, Shapiro was quoted saying, “Think about education, think about games; it’s endless where we could go. We think it’s as big, if not bigger, than the money-transfer business” (Lieber). In a 2014 CNBC article, Ryan Shapiro stated “Our goal is to become the nation’s digital consumer app company for prisons” (Wikipedia Contributors, “JPay”).

Kolibri⁴ - an Application Programming Interface (“API”) which describes itself as “a collection of tools providing access to open-source learning resources ranging from literacy to chemical engineering” (Kolibri) caught my attention because it is a learning management system that works without the internet. It also caught the attention of JPay, which made KA Lite – the first instance of Kolibri - available to incarcerated people by installing it on JPay tablets “for free” in 2016 (JPay). These tablets are used in classrooms in at least ten prisons in the U.S. through JPay Lantern, a partnership between JPay and Ashland University, a private Anabaptist University in Ohio, as part of an educational program self-described as “the largest digital education program in corrections” (JPay Lantern).

I had no trouble downloading and installing the Kolibri app and 10 GB of content in one hour in New York City in April, 2020 in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.⁵ I downloaded the Khan Academy “Arts and Humanities” and “Computing” resource collections and found that these contained only a small amount of biased, dismally curated content. Educational ventures like these get funded through the scant resources for educational purposes bundled into the First Step Act. It is tremendously important that we push for oversight and for funding quality learning resources instead of dubious applications like Kolibri.

As technology use in education programs in prison increases, companies like Securus, GTL and AGT will be quick to snap up contracts and sell mediocre applications as educational tools. Instead of bridging the digital divide this could litter the gap with e-waste.

The digital-analog Leap

Aware from first-hand experience of how important communication with family, friends and communities in the outside world is for those in prison, at least three formerly incarcerated people created Instagram-type apps which allow family and friends to send selfies and messages directly from their phones to the prisons, where these are printed out and delivered to incarcerated people as if they were mail. Pigeonly is an app that allows people on the outside to send photos and messages to people inside, as well as to access cheaper online phone rates for a low monthly fee (Pigeonly).

Another app recently created by a formerly incarcerated person is Flikshop, an Instagram-type app that produces printable postcards “for as low as 0.79 cents” (Flikshop). A third app called InmateAid lets subscribers sidestep long-distance rates by facilitating an online connection at local phone rates regardless of geographical location for $8.95 a month, and has cut the calling costs for some families down from $750 a month to just $50 (Carville). “Many prisons welcome the new technology, viewing the start-ups as potential allies in the war against contraband [and are a] win-win for everybody,” says Tammy Moyer, the Lancaster County Prison in Pennsylvania Director of Administration (Carville).

Internet

The extent to which at least some internet access is denied to most incarcerated people sets these apart from the general population and is an urgent concern. With visits from family, friends and advocates suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic, not having access to online communication is causing unnecessary suffering, and a lack of information has contributed to the exponential spread of Coronavirus in prisons and jails. While communication between free people in wealthier nations around the world has moved online, communication in prison is curtailed because prisons are completely locked down. Incarcerated people receive limited information about the virus itself, the only available sources being television, radio, prison authorities, corrections officers and some limited and expensive communication by phone. We cannot begin to imagine the emotional strain of being cut off from family and friends whose lives are at risk while within prisons the pandemic explodes.⁶

The New York State Department of Corrections and Community took some measures to increase access to electronic communications for incarcerated people including five free stamps per week, two free secure messages per week via electronic tablet and two free 30-minute phone calls (“Suspensions”). However, because lockdowns tend to limit movement within prisons it is not clear how easily incarcerated people can use their stamps, message vouchers and calls. Clampdowns on communication in prisons are thus contributing to a rising death toll and increasing levels of fear and stress in prison populations and making it difficult for advocates to know how bad things are on the inside.

Learning constraints

Years ago, my first boyfriend was incarcerated for something foolish he had done in his teens. His case had crawled through the criminal justice system for years, and when he was finally committed to prison, he was a happy, healthy young man with a job. When I went to visit him after only a week of confinement, however, I was struck by the change prison had wrought. His skin had lost its glow due to prison food, lack of fresh air and lack of exercise, and he was haggard on account of lost sleep. The most striking change, though, was a sort of flitting absence that had taken hold in his eye. As we talked he was strangely distracted, as if he were not altogether there. As weeks and months went by these changes become more pronounced, and I saw that his sense of connection to the world was slipping away.

A Prison Reform Trust report found that isolation from families and social networks, austere surroundings, loss of privacy, poor physical and hygienic conditions, aggression, bullying, fear, suspicion, the attitudes of unsympathetic and uninformed staff, lack of purposeful activity, loss of personal control, loss of power to act, loss of identity, pressure to escape or to take drugs, shame and stigmatization, uncertainty and concern about reentry all have severe negative effects on mental health (Prison Reform Trust). Under prison conditions, people shut down. Many turn to religion. Others seek solace in drugs. Prison is about as unconducive a learning environment as one can get.

Prison schedules and regimens put incarcerated students under a lot of stress, which is never a good thing for study. Humanities courses are a good way to push back against the disassociation many imprisoned people experience when confined because the humanities help us situate personal experience in historical and systemic contexts, make connections between self and society, question, analyze, and imagine, thus engaging the mind. Learning to do humanities research through praxis with digital tools further helps people engage, even under duress, because it is fun. Fun is a proven pedagogical method to engage students. Building is empowering and building digital artifacts in collaboration with others will build student communities in the prison classroom.

Next: 5. Minimal Computing