With the Times, Not Against Them
I had a pervasive thought one night as I laid here, pondering why prisons are such an anachronistic, antagonistic system.
How would you provide inmates with the tools to keep up with the times, but mitigate abuse vectors as much as reasonably possible?
In this case, I refer to the major tool that is the use of the Internet, and related access to educational opportunities of many vectors.
We are increasingly being given these JPay tablets, which are crippled to the point of near-unusability. There are no user installable apps that fill in shortcomings, like the ability to communicate with our loved ones in a rapid manner, or to check multiple news sources. Instead...
- JPay's failed attempt at messaging leaves residents and their loved ones in a massive limbo that makes the US Postal service look like the Roadrunner, but it IS a tiny slit window to the outside world for us. As so, my people pay 39¢ to trickle news on subjects that interest me from time to time.
- Our $5.99/mo. Newsstand app gives us a feed from the Associated Press, but it is dominated by Sports news. Too little focus in this app is on Science, Health, Technology, Climate Change, or even the good being done in the world today. For free, we can see the (poorly written) headline, but anything more requires that $5.99 monthly payment.
- Our Podcasts app (a modified build of AntennaPod) has audio only feeds for nearly all content, and to make it worse, there is no transcription of the podcast available for hearing impaired or deaf users. This hinders the use of the free app by this audience, and NO accommodations are made for them (read: us -- I am hearing impaired).
It took me back to a thought that I mentioned in June 2023 about recidivism. If prisoners were treated not as scum at the bottom of a pond, but as people in need of a way to succeed, perhaps the Monster Builder factory will face layoffs in the best way.
How Do We Start?
Tablet Pickup, Tablet Plug-up.
Let's begin with this handheld computer I have!
First, we have access to Khan Academy Lite on our tablets. The idea is great, but the execution is 💩. We do not have proper lessons loaded in -- just the tests in some cases, and just videos in others. For someone who wanted to learn HTML and CSS, as example, there just isn't a lesson that teaches them the basics. For another person, looking for a refresher or lessons on Algebra and Geometry, there is no reason to use this, either -- there's no lesson data.
If this were correctly built out, with lessons and tests combined, with an environment for students to try out their own code, and a proper chance to learn, you might have more people who wish to learn web development, or software development, or a number of gainful career opportunities that match the way our society is moving. You would have a way for people who haven't even thought the word "Algebra" in two or three decades to brush up on the skill, helping them to become relevant in the job market of now.
In my home state (not the state to which I was abducted), there was an offering that taught software development, right there in the browser. Offer a service like this to inmates. Surely an option like this can be rolled out: these tablets have a whitelisted internet experience -- I can reach HonestJobs, which shows me job listings from my home state. Why not offer the same thing for learning how to code?
We are, nominally speaking, eligible for Pell Grants; we need educational institutions that can accept Pell Grant moneys and work with prisoners who want to step up to the plate and swing for the fences. Correspondence schools are not a new idea. Run with this in the Now age: work with Departments of Corrections across the nation, offer schooling, and an app that allows we recluses to opt in to digital receipt of our books and/or classwork.
I'm holding a computer. Please teach me.
PTFE Barrier Reef
Next: Remove artificial barriers to education.
I have a sentence that exceeds 10 years. Because of this, I am ineligible at this time to take this compound's college course offering that they DO have. You have to be within 10 years of leaving prison to work on things like getting your Business Administration degree here.
What about those with long or Life sentences that may be contesting their charges or reasons for commitment, and somehow gain success over the state of Florida?
You've actively denied them the option to further educate while they go through the arduous process of fighting. So... they can't have the same opportunity as a self-professed, glad-he-did-it, 10-outta-10, would-do-it-again criminal that's only got a 5 year sentence?
That is an artificial barrier. It should be removed.
A person with a life sentence, a 20-year sentence, a 15-year sentence should have many of the same opportunities as the person leaving in six years. Consider: The knowledge this long-timer stands to gain could be used to positively affect their loved ones beyond the wires.
Maybe they have a 15 year old son who doesn't want to go to school, wanting to follow in dad's footsteps, engaging in a life of criminality. Dad could literally say, "College is important. I've got my degree in Business Administration now. I don't want you to wait until you have a DC number to learn what I learned."
Pass me the hole puncher.
There are a number of apps on our tablets that I am sure are just PWAs: Progressive Web Apps. In short, they are just web browser engines wrapped with a whitelist that can reach a specific domain.
Give us more of that -- build a web portal with news feeds from multiple sources. Let us consume local, state, national, and world news -- just because we are forced to be recluses does not make us immune to needing to understand and know about world changes. $6/mo to get a crippled AP news feed is disingenuous and shameful, to say the least.
Actually, books.
While I have focused on eBooks, let's also talk about actual books.
Florida's Department of Corrections has a Library Review Committee (or LRC), who are the gatekeepers for what we wards of the state can receive as books.
Ostensibly, there is a valid reason to review books: learning how to make alcohol or weapons out of virtual scraps isn't something we have to know in our environment. Fake books containing pages treated with synthetic cannabinoids aren't welcome, either. This, unfortunately, makes for a reasonable enough expectation of book review, and for limitations on who or what can send books.
What does not make for a reasonable cause to block a book is someone who wants to make use of the years they have to sit idle, learning some aspect of software or web development, or how to effectively run a legitimate business, or wants to learn how to write stories. This person might have made acquaintance with a new gain (a term used by camps indicating the inmate-resident is new to their facility), who was willing to share info on what they were doing to earn money on the streets. Maybe they were wowed by the person saying "I earned $69,420 a year to sit at home in my boxers, watching Netflix and doing lines of code--"
Lines of Coke?
"Nah, I'm an RC Cola guy." 🤣
Bad joke aside, they now want to learn something about this field, so they call upon the various prison book projects or their loved ones to mail books so they can get started on learning something that, upon release, can be used as a legal side hustle or main career. You know, earning real, legal money, paying fines and restitution in a timely manner... Things we're asked to do.
Alas, the LRC rears their many heads. A ban on a book at one facility cascades the ban to all facilities here in Florida. It simply takes ONE person to screw the entire state's prison population out of opportunities to self-educate.
This person might have family who orders a starter guide to a scripting language, something that breaks down every step into easy to understand language, making the language accessible to a newbie.
The LRC, however, has added the book to their Refusal list, with a reason code that reads to the effect of the book does not positively contribute to the rehabilitation efforts of the facility, or proposes a security threat. When the facility mailroom gets the book, and checks the title against their list, they find a match, reject the book, and tell the inmate that the inmate must pay to ship the book out or have the book thrown out, instead of respectfully sending the book back to the business with a notification: "Our facilities do not allow the contents of this book to be distributed for this reason. You may challenge this ban by doing the following: ..."
Interestingly, the FDC policies and procedures say that the sender is to be notified by the facility in the event of a book refusal, to be afforded an opportunity to challenge said refusal. Based on true events, this is not being done.
. o ( It's a new age book burning! )
Mail call!
We are a prison system that does not allow for physical mail, except from governmental, legal, or religious entities.
Again, their reasoning is purportedly to curtail the ingress of synthetic cannabinoids and other intoxicants into the prison system. Okay, I get that: I have seen plenty of inmates baked out of their gourds on fake marijuana since I've been down. It's going to happen.
However, consider the avenues of entry for these materials, and do so carefully. We only have three options for mail.
- Uncle Sam's not going to mail me a paper doobie.
- The Law Offices of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe aren't going to risk getting disbarred by mailing a synthoblunt.
- Someone's sangha, temple congregation, church, or mosque is not likely mailing out the blessed smokes.
Yet, the problems still exist. What's left? :')
Bring back our real mail. This gives our loved ones the option to look up things to learn for us, print them, and mail them to us. It divorces our mail from tablets that can take away our mail at any time.
Maybe I'm into alternative power storage options, and my loved ones think I want to know about vanadium redox batteries (I do!). They could physically mail me info, allowing me to read at my leisure.
Maybe I am into cooking with unusual ingredients or tools (I am!), and someone wrote an article about cooking steaks with a rice cooker, a vacuum sealer, and a frying pan.
Imagine when inmates can share what they have learned with others. Maybe your neighbor is three months away from going home, and you learn via mail a handy life hack that would save them $20 at the grocery store.
"Bro, you like bacon, right?"
"Well, yeah."
"If you do this one thing when you shop, you'll have more money for more bacon."
"Yo, that looks easy."
"Yet almost no-one does it... :)"
Don't take a rain check.
As we reach the end of this thought, realize this is really only the tip of the iceberg, on things we should do to improve prisons. I wouldn't be surprised if other states already do much of this, since this is Florida, the cesspool of America.
I am sure much, much more is doable.
Share with the world the changes you can think of. I would love to see what your minds can construct. :)
Until the next time, be good to and for each other. 👋🏾