Indiana's Inmates Could Soon Have Access To Tablets (abc57.com) 133
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC57 News in South Bend, Indiana: Indiana is looking to help offenders who are behind bars. Soon, each inmate in the Hoosier state could have their own tablet. The Indiana Department of Correction says the tablet will help inmates stay connected with their families and improve their education. Offenders will be able to use the tablets to access any classwork, self-help materials or entertainment. Officials expect to use entertainment, like music or movies, to reward good behavior. The proposal was first filed in January. Apple iPad's or kindles won't be used. Instead, a company that makes tablets specifically for prisons or jails will be hired. One San Francisco based-company they may consider, Telmate, has a device that is used in more than 20 states, including some jails in Marshall County. INDOC is hoping a vendor will front the costs of the entertainment apps so taxpayers won't have to. INDOC also says it wants to avoid charging inmate fees because charging fees that they can't afford would defeat the purpose of the system. If the company selected pays, the vendor would be reimbursed and still earn a profit.
Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
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How is that the prisons problem?
No matter how little a prison provides the inmates with an employer will theoretically be capable of providing less.
That your employer doesn't provide you with good equipment is not an argument for making prisons worse.
If your workplace is so bad that people working there is turning to crime then there is even more reason to make prisons so good that people there won't become repeat offenders.
In a way prisons are in the same territory that schools are in. People there are sup
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What is your experience in prisons?
Re: Why not? (Score:1)
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He doesn't have a choice - he's in prison, you insensitive clod!
Re: Why not? (Score:1)
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So inmates in prison will have access to better equipment than i do at work? Is this some kind of disincentive program.
Exactly, So why don't you do something to get sent to prison and get better equipment.
Re: Why not? (Score:1)
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Re:Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
How about "occupying their time" with work such as making license plates, breaking big rocks into smaller rocks, digging holes, filling in holes, etc.?
And when they get out their only possible skill set will be "making license plates, breaking big rocks into smaller rocks, digging holes, filling in holes, etc.". At least with a tablet the have the possibility of learning something of value.
Re: Why not? (Score:3)
Not true, menial labor serves to convince people they don't want to do menial labor and strive for something better. It's up to the individual to find their motivation. Would tablet permissions as a reward work for good behavior? Sure, I don't however think every inmate should get one at the cost to taxpayers.
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Not true, menial labor serves to convince people they don't want to do menial labor and strive for something better.
Like getting quick cash by robbing a store?
It is not like it is an untested area. There have been a lot of experiments going on in how to make criminals turn away from crime.
Physical labor doesn't do jack shit in that regard. It's just something that keeps them occupied while in jail
There are two things that actually works when it comes to stop convicts from becoming repeat offenders.
The primary one is education. If they have more options when they come out then the likelihood of them committing more crimes
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Why not? (Score:1)
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Re: Why not? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Not true, menial labor serves to convince people they don't want to do menial labor and strive for something better. It's up to the individual to find their motivation. Would tablet permissions as a reward work for good behavior? Sure, I don't however think every inmate should get one at the cost to taxpayers.
Okay, Let's put it to the test. On you for the next 30 years.
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"Not true, menial labor serves to convince people they don't want to do menial labor and strive for something better."
Of course they probably became criminals because they didnt want to do menial labor so that doesnt hold up so well.
Maybe giving them a little help in finding better uses for their energy is a good thing.
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"Not true, menial labor serves to convince people they don't want to do menial labor and strive for something better."
With a criminal record, there aren't many options.
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One interesting approach that I read about a few years ago that seems to really help was a dog training program [newleashonlife-usa.org] where inmates help to rehabilitate and train shelter dogs so that they can be adopted or for use as service animals. It's certai
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How about "occupying their time" with work such as making license plates, breaking big rocks into smaller rocks, digging holes, filling in holes, etc.?
Having zero marketable skills will really do well for America's already shithouse recidivism stats.
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Informative)
How about "occupying their time" with work such as making license plates, breaking big rocks into smaller rocks, digging holes, filling in holes, etc.?
Making license plates doesn't earn the prison near enough money. And before you tell me about INDOC not wanting to charge the inmate fees, you'd be right of course. INDOC doesn't want to charge the inmates. It wants to charge their families. This is exactly how they used to do it for phone calls.
They used to charge up to $14 per minute for collect phone calls until the FCC recently put a stop [washingtonpost.com] to it. Now, they're capped at no more than $1.75 for 15 minutes. Can you believe it? On a 15 min phone call, there is now a shortfall of $208.25
Prisons have come to depend on this extra income for their sludge funds. Now that the FCC took it away from them. They just need to start providing services on cheap devices that the FCC hasn't even thought to regulate for prison yet. This is the real story here.
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They used to charge up to $14 per minute for collect phone calls until the FCC recently put a stop [washingtonpost.com] to it. Now, they're capped at no more than $1.75 for 15 minutes. Can you believe it? On a 15 min phone call, there is now a shortfall of $208.25
Prisons have come to depend on this extra income for their sludge funds. Now that the FCC took it away from them. They just need to start providing services on cheap devices that the FCC hasn't even thought to regulate for prison yet. This is the real story here.
The court blocked the FCC's rate cap and then the FCC gave up on it anyway.
https://consumerist.com/2017/0... [consumerist.com]
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Thanks for the update. I didn't know that. It's worse than I thought.
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How about "occupying their time" with work such as making license plates, breaking big rocks into smaller rocks, digging holes, filling in holes, etc.?
Because there are businesses out there that can make money doing that stuff.
Then again, there is a sizable subset of Americans who are pissed off that we can't own slaves any more, a sweet gig that the North screwed up with their war of aggression.
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What's the deterrent to crime then?
They can't block ads.
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Hmmm - prison = food, clothing, shelter, in some cases a good gym membership and now your own tablet with internet and skype and probably easy access to porn.
What's the deterrent to crime then?
First, you need to give up your freedom. Be denied all contact with all other humans, and be cut off from the world. You'd need to accept spending years like that. For years, you will not see a sunrise, or a rolling ocean. For years, you cannot join a motorcycle club. For years, even the possibility of a pleasant walk will elude you. You'll miss the spring flowers, the greens of summer, and the spectacle of autumn - for years. And for years, you will not feel wind in your hair or the sun on your face.
If you
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Prison != solitary confinement. That would be far too expensive. You get to see sunrises and sunsets, you get to play sports, you get your 3 square meals a day and all medical expenses covered. And if you think that "joining a motorcycle club" is just about riding motor cycles, you need to talk to a few Satan's Choice or Hells Angels members. The clubs function just fine in prisons, controlling much of the drug trade.
For the homeless, prison looks like a damn fine deal.
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Informative)
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Naive, aren't we? First, this is not free. You have to pay per minute, and it's not the whole internet. Just chat stuff with a select list of approved people, courses, court case management, etc.
Second, in the hole you won't be able to make any money to pay for it anyway.
Third, you don't get any luxuries in the hole. Not even a sheet, blanket, and a pillow. So forget a tablet.
Fourth, you don't get to decide to go to solitary. If you're a real PITA, they may decide to keep you with the general population
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Most ghetto-dwellers never had any of that freedom to begin with. They don't give up shit when they go to prison. Depending on gang affiliation, they can live a much better life behind bars than they ever did outside.
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First, you need to give up your freedom. Be denied all contact with all other humans, and be cut off from the world. You'd need to accept spending years like that. For years, you will not see a sunrise, or a rolling ocean. For years, you cannot join a motorcycle club. For years, even the possibility of a pleasant walk will elude you. You'll miss the spring flowers, the greens of summer, and the spectacle of autumn - for years. And for years, you will not feel wind in your hair or the sun on your face.
Give me a break. Given the alternative is living on the streets, where arguably there's as much access to these things as possible, most would choose the prison offer. Hunger and cold are powerful motivators.
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First, you need to give up your freedom. Be denied all contact with all other humans, and be cut off from the world. You'd need to accept spending years like that. For years, you will not see a sunrise, or a rolling ocean. For years, you cannot join a motorcycle club. For years, even the possibility of a pleasant walk will elude you. You'll miss the spring flowers, the greens of summer, and the spectacle of autumn - for years. And for years, you will not feel wind in your hair or the sun on your face.
So? That sounds just like a career in IT in Cubicle Hell to me . . .
Re: Why not? (Score:2)
The inability to leave.
Re: Why not? (Score:1)
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Informative)
Hmmm - prison = food, clothing, shelter, in some cases a good gym membership and now your own tablet with internet and skype and probably easy access to porn. What's the deterrent to crime then?
The conditions in prison are rarely effective as a deterrent anyway, either people think they'll get away with it (typically theft, burglary, mugging, robbery, trafficking illegal goods, fraud, embezzlement and related crimes) or crimes of passion (rage, lust, envy mostly, often combined with being drunk or high - most violent crime, rape and murder) where they're not thinking rationally of consequences. While there are certainly repeat offenders there's also many first-time offenders that have no real concept of what doing time is like or small time criminals that confuse being off the streets for a few weeks on minimum security with being locked up for years.
And most criminals don't return or not return to prison because of how the conditions are on the inside. They return because they don't really see any alternatives to the life they have on the outside. No money, no job, no CV or work history, so it's back to stealing or peddling drugs on the street corner. Or they have impulse control or substance abuse issues that don't just disappear with time. And if prison is some horrible hellhole then you have these "nothing to lose", "never going back" people who will do anything to get away with it and fight the police until they die in a rain of bullets from a SWAT team. They need to see that there is another way, in prison and after prison. Not everyone will want to change, but you can't whip them into changing.
Getting proper apples-to-apples numbers on the effect of treating prisoners humanely is very difficult, but it generally varies from "it helps" to "it doesn't hurt", there's really very little to suggest it makes things worse. It's mostly a matter of whether it's money worth spending. Here in Norway we created what the international press called "the world's most humane maximum security prison" but mainly it's that it is built like a normal living quarters like a dorm room or hotel room. No escapes, very low tension even though it's murderers and rapists. Even gangs keep the peace inside the prison, it's like everybody is on time-out. And quite many find they like it better than the life they had.
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I'd agree with this. I'm in school studying forensic psychology. According to what I've learned so far, the best way to treat offenders and rehabilitate them is to first focus on those who have the greatest chance of re-offending in the future (triage), under the theory that they are the most likely to benefit from treatment (this requires an assessment of future risk for each person). In the treatment itself, it's important to match the appropriate staff to treat certain populations so that they are respon
Re: Deterrent to crime (Score:1)
What is the Purpose of Prison? (Score:2)
[1] Is it to punish Bad Guys, said punishment being a deterrent to keep all those not-quite Bad Guys from taking the plunge?
[2] Is it to protect the populace, keeping Bad Guys off the streets?
[3] Or is it to rehabilitate Bad Guys, transform them into Good Guys?
If it's [1] or [2], ditch the iPads and stack 'em up like cordwood. If it's [3], give 'em all iPads and teach 'em web design (the modern equivalent of making license plates), but don't call it 'prison,' because words mean something. It seems to me
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[1] Is it to punish Bad Guys, said punishment being a deterrent to keep all those not-quite Bad Guys from taking the plunge?
[2] Is it to protect the populace, keeping Bad Guys off the streets?
[3] Or is it to rehabilitate Bad Guys, transform them into Good Guys?
[4] All of the above.
If it's [1] or [2], ditch the iPads and stack 'em up like cordwood. If it's [3], give 'em all iPads and teach 'em web design (the modern equivalent of making license plates), but don't call it 'prison,' because words mean something. It seems to me the justice system blurs all these distinctions into a muddy and costly mess.
Prisons actually serve all three purposes, they serve as deterrents against crime, isolation of criminals and for rehabilitation of criminals. Most western countries tend to emphasise the latter but we still call them prisons.
By and large I agree with rehabilitating criminals as much as possible, however there are cases where all we can do is keep them locked up. This does not mean we should stack them in like cordwood. Even if they're animals, we're not, so we maintain a minimal lev
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You missed a reason. A rather less noble reason, but still a real one.
[4] To satisfy the people's sense of justice by letting them see suffering inflicted upon those regarded as deserving suffering.
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Re: Why not? (Score:1)
Crime is falling with lead levels from gasoline (Score:2)
http://www.motherjones.com/env... [motherjones.com]
"So this is the choice before us: We can either attack crime at its root by getting rid of the remaining lead in our environment, or we can continue our current policy of waiting 20 years and then locking up all the lead-poisoned kids who have turned into criminals."
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From the article: "The gasoline lead story has another virtue too: It's the only hypothesis that persuasively explains both the rise of crime in the '60s and '70s and its fall beginning in the '90s. Two other theories -- the baby boom demographic bulge and the drug explosion of the '60 -- at least have the potential to explain both, but neither one fully fits the known data. Only gasoline lead, with its dramatic rise and fall following World War II, can explain the equally dramatic rise and fall in violent
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I know the get tough on crime crowd will be throwing a massive shit-fit, but if you can give them something to occupy their time, it might be less shit going down in there.
Because we don't want criminals rehabilitating and reintegrating into normal society. How can we continue to run a prison-industrial complex if we reduce recidivism rates.
And rewards for good behaviour, pshaw, we should be training guards to beat prisoners senseless whilst ignoring sodomy in the wash room, nor should we pay prison guards enough that they wouldn't dare think about taking some bribes from inmates to smuggle in drugs. No, we should be outsourcing prison staff to the lowest possible bidder.
Re:Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Norway consists of a mostly peaceful homogeneous society. Send them a few hundred thousand MS-13s who are from places where human life is very cheap, and see what happens to their society. It will break apart really fast.
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Of course first generation immigrants in the US (both illegal and legal) are significantly less likely to commit crimes (outside of illegal immigration in the case of illegal immigrants obviously) than native born citizens.
To site just a few, easy to find, sources...
https://www.google.com/url?sa=... [google.com]
http://www.pewresearch.org/fac... [pewresearch.org]
http://www.politifact.com/trut... [politifact.com]
Not that I think such a pesky thing as reality will change your mind as "racial purity" is a system of belief that inherently doesnt allow foriegn
Re: Why not? (Score:2)
The get-tough on crime comically macho idiots are usually the first ones to commit a crime if they were in a circumstance where they needed to and felt they could get away with it. Tablets are really cheap nowadays. My only concern is that the Lithium Ion batteries could be dangerous. I think the highest priority for prison is cameras with audio and night vision capability everywhere inside including aimed at the cell (when they need privacy they could have a small designated area in the cell that is out of
Re: The get tough on crime type (Score:1)
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We know where this is going (Score:2)
Obligatory Community reference:
http://community-sitcom.wikia.... [wikia.com]
Porn (Score:2)
These will be used 99.9% for porn.
Re: Porn (Score:1)
For profit prison industry ... (Score:5, Insightful)
They operate on cost plus contracts, with practically unlimited access to tax payer funds. If some court somewhere rules "inmates must have access to gym equipment", they could build a 2 million dollar gym in the prison and mop up 20% of it or build 20K gym and get 20% of that. Which one would they choose?
These prison companies charge 2 $ a minute for a phone call. Yes, in this day and age of unlimited voice and data, voice calls out of prison costs the inmates or their families 2$ a minute. Do you think this new fangled tablets are going to provided to them at reasonable costs you and I pay outside the prisons? You have not seen the twinkling dollar signs in the eyes of prison management executives.
The prison companies pressure judges to use harsh prison sentences using social media and slanted local news coverage. Lobby the legislators for minimum sentencing guidelines. Encourage law suites that will increase the cost of incarceration. More it costs, more is their margin! They also actually bribe judges to be harsh. Only a few judges like the one in Wilkes-Barry PA got caught, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
We have to outlaw private sector prisons. It is a crying shame USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world and adding insult to injury we are paying through our noses for it.
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I agree but your post is off topic. Indiana seems to be trying to avoid using this as a service, and using it more for pacification. Other states have implemented the service model, but I see no indication here.
I would support Indiana and encourage them away from fees, rather than attacking a problem that exists elsewhere.
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It's somewhat locked down (Score:3)
I saw another article about this a month ago.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ne... [cbsnews.com]
They may be able to customize how locked down they are depending on the facility where they're used.
In this article they pay 5 cents a minute.
Inmates can text and call up to 10 contacts who must be screened and approved by the company. Telmate monitors and stores data on the inmates’ communications, providing the information to investigator
Better article:
http://cbs6albany.com/news/loc... [cbs6albany.com]
Inmates can't surf the web on the devices but they are allowed to talk to or text up to 10 contacts. The sheriff says Telmate, the company that created the tablet software, checks those people out before any communication occurs.
“As well as vetting the person they look for buzzwords, encrypted messages trying to come through,” Apple said.
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That's not Indiana, and the vendor mentioned is only one of many being considered. So that info is ancillary at best.
Nice! (Score:1)
So instead of waiting for a family member to visit for relaying hit orders to the brute squad, they can do it via email or chat?
Re: Doesn't seem right (Score:1)
Re: wtf? (Score:1)
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Black Mirror (Score:2)
Re: Black Mirror (Score:1)
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In The Netherlands some evidence based online psycholog
Explain to me (Score:2)
...why, for a goodly chunk of the population, it wouldn't just be better to become a ward of the state, again?
I should just commit a crime (Score:2)
I live in Illinois and have a very high-stress IT job. I should just drive the 90 miles and commit armed robbery at the first gas station. I could basically do the same thing I do today, but without the stress, pressure, or cost of living I have now.
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Yeah because living in a prison is stress and pressure free! Also everything you've accumulated over your lifetime will be gone, because you won't be able to pay to store and preserve it! Yay for freedom from cost of living! Plus of course once you get out, if you ever get out, you can kiss away any chance of retaining your high-stress IT career. No one in the field's ever going to hire an ex-con! You can look forward to a life free from all the stresses of the IT field!
well under gop healthcare plan you may have to (Score:2)
well under gop healthcare plan you may have to and you just need to rob a bank to go to a fed lockup. Bette healthcare then states.
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Okay, so go do that then. No one is stopping you but yourself.
Or maybe that's just a really dumb thing you just said.
Source of this idea, no doubt... (Score:2)
...is a tablet vendor account exec playing golf with some senior official at the state corrections office. Whether it's a good idea for the inmates or society is purely secondary.
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Solve the literacy problem (Score:1)
I've long been an advocate of e-books or tablets for inmates as they have the potential to catch on and be a real game changer if the politically correct sadists don't shoot down the problem. Staggering amounts of people who end up in jail/prison lack basic literacy skills. Far too many jails also lack decent libraries, or even opportunities to finish school. Start using audio books and movies with captioning and you'll see the problem with recidivism begin to solve itself. Empowering inmates with educat
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where are the bodies?
You know, there's a thing called Google. You can search for things like this. It's not hard, snowflake.
http://www.wave3.com/story/344... [wave3.com]
I could go on and on with these links. Kids in the back where the two adults in the front OD and are now dead, while driving a car in traffic. And so on and so on. Happens a lot lately.
Raped? Here you go. Just google these. There are plenty of examples if you look.
http://lacrossetribune.com/jac... [lacrossetribune.com]
I remember incident after incident in the early 1970s. Stupid kids doing drugs