Free Prison Tablets Aren’t Actually Free
This week, September 15-21, is Prison Banned Books Week. The campaign aims to educate and advocate on behalf of those experiencing incarceration who are simultaneously experiencing the most book banning and censorship while in jail or prison.
We are honored to help spread the word about the impact of prison censorship throughout the week. With the help of Prison Banned Books Week partners, on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, you’ll read essays written by a currently incarcerated individual and the vital role books and reading has had in their lives—as well as the realities of what it means to access literature while in the system.
This essay is part of a series to raise awareness during the second annual Prison Banned Books Week. Each essay, written by a currently incarcerated person, details the author’s experience of reading on prison tablets. Because every one of the 52 carceral jurisdictions in the country have different prison telecom contracts and censorship policies, it’s important to hear from incarcerated people across the country.
Single-state prison systems censor more books than all state schools and libraries combined. Recently, prisons and jails have been contracting with private telecom companies to provide tablets to detained and incarcerated people. Tablets have been used to curtail paper literature under specious claims that mail is the primary conduit of contraband. Most also have highly limited content. In many states, accessing the content is costly, despite companies acquiring these titles for free. This inaccessible and outdated reading material is used to justify preventing people from receiving paper literature and information.
This year, the organizers and supporters of Prison Banned Books Week, in collaboration with the San Francisco Public Library, which recently extended their catalog to local prisons and jails, we are calling for public library catalogs to be made available on carceral tablets. Library content is for community use, and detained and incarcerated people are still part of our communities.
To learn more, visit the Prison Banned Books Week website or purchase a copy of Books through Bars: Stories from the Prison Books Movement edited by Moira Marquis and Dave “Mac” Marquis.
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Free Prison Tablets Aren’t Actually Free by Ezzial Williams
ChatGPT
Zelle
TikTok
I only know about these things because of my family. I’ve missed the last twenty years of technology because I’ve been incarcerated. Before tablets, we only had access to physical mail, 15 minute prepaid phone calls, and six hour in person visitation every Sat/Sun.
When the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC) first started providing tablets back in 2017, they cost a pretty penny and didn’t come with much instruction. For a small 4 inch JP5 tablet it was approximately $80. For the bigger 7 inch JP5S it was approximately $150. There were no accessibility features for the hard of hearing and/or low vision impaired inmates when the first round of tablets came out. Neither were there any in-depth tutorials for first-time users.You basically had to have the means and the know-how to buy and operate the damn thang, and it was a learning process even then.
When an old-timer asked me to help him create an eight character password, I jokingly told him to just put in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves … which he actually thought I meant. I knew right then that the upgrade to such technology would take some getting used to…
Unlike the free apps they now offer in 2024 like sports, news and self-help podcasts, ebooks and a variety of Christian podcasts on PANDO, there weren’t any free apps whatsoever back in 2017 and very limited music/movies you could order at the time.
Then the Florida DOC announced they would be providing free loaner tablets all hell broke loose. Or should I say, it was heaven for those with deep pockets and short arms. In essence, the people who were profiting off of inmates and their families got richer and weren’t sharing the wealth. Let me explain.
Since as early as 2016, internment telecommunications companies like Global Tel Link, JPay and Securus have been issuing thousands of free tablets to incarcerated people. Colorado was the first. Now Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Indiana, Connecticut and New York, to name a few, offer people incarcerated in their states these “free” tablets on loan.
They were issued to every inmate in every FDOC facility on a dorm-to-dorm basis. The tablets were sturdy and came with a separate protective rubber casing for possible drops, but the tablet’s hardware and internal components were encased in a hard, clear see through casing to avoid contraband being hidden within.
The tablets are “free” like your cellphone is free if you sign-up for a two year contract. In other words, they’re free but you still have to pay to use them. It’s big business. Companies like JPay and Securus (mind you, JPay is OWNED by Securus – a conglomerate of prison telecommunications that exposed the mobile data of potentially every American to hackers back in May 2018), often sign lucrative contracts with entire state penal systems, and there’s usually no inmate liaison involved. They make so much money, prison tablets have even birthed new telecommunications companies, like Unity.
Promotional sales pitches by professional salespeople have marketed these free tablets to the general public as a way for people inside to self-educate, prepare for reentry and better communicate with family and friends. However, the underlying motivation for tablets is economic. Behind these “free” tablet programs state officials and prison telecom companies are making mad loot.
If the tablet was damaged and/or stolen, you had to put in a trouble ticket with Jpay to order another one, but had to get FDOC security to first search your person and/or property to see if you indeed still had it or not and to verify damage done to it. There was a bad case of the batteries swelling up and exploding with the first tablets and a lot of inmates had to turn them into property before getting new ones, which is the normal procedure in any case. Some nefarious inmates was “jail breaking” the tablets with illegal cell phones and downloading prohibited social media apps, porn and unauthorized movies, but if caught with a jailbroken tablet, you was subjected to stiff disciplinary infractions which entailed upwards to 60 days in confinement, loss of gain time and even restitution to Jpay for the “compromised” tablet. Not to mention loss of kiosk and tablet privileges for a year.
Thanks to outside activism and a push from caring state representatives, there is a lot of free educational content now like KA-LITE, which is a lightweight web server for viewing and interacting with Khan Academy content like videos and exercises without needing an internet connection, a few shallow pages of reentry suggestions from FDOC and a TYRO app that helps address anger, anxiety, denial, fear and grief. Needless to say, the primary purpose of the tablet based on content is entertainment. What us inmates like to call “electronic babysitters.” Every song, game and movie cost money, however, which they advertise first and foremost.
For instance, the prison industrial complex can pilfer anywhere from 10% to 50% of the money generated from emails alone that have been sent by those they incarcerate. Securus, (which use to be controlled by Tom Gores, the billionaire owner of the Detroit Pistons who gained possession of Securus in Nov. 2018 for 1.5 billion according to records), has disbursed approximately 1.3 billion in commissions to the prison industrial complex over the past years … which includes commissions from non-tablet programs like phone calls.
Global Tel Link and Securus together share about 85% of the prison industrial complex telecommunication services, not to mention the overwhelming majority of prison tablets itself. Fees related to money transfers alone (for example, a $12.99 service fee to transfer $100 from the outside in), produced an estimated $99.2 million in revenue for companies like JPay according to the Prison Policy Initiative who researches communication systems in prisons. Sending ONE email to a loved one out there costs us .39 cents in here, TWO TIMES that to attach a picture, and FOURFOLD for a video gram. Games can cost upwards to $7.99, movies $5.99, and individual songs $1.99 each!
New release movies like Argylle, Godzilla/Kong: The New Empire, and Dune: Part Two, are front and center for purchase (which is 7.99 for 48 hours of viewing). New music such as Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology,’ can be purchased for a one time fee of $20.64 for the whole album or $1.97 for each song. Most inmates prefer and consume more music and games than anything else because of the advertising and the simple fact you can listen/play the acquired content at your leisure for as long as you have the tablet, but if there is any type of glitch and/or defect within the content, you have to write a trouble ticket to Jpay which a refund can take anywhere from 3-6 months to get back. Sometimes you don’t get a refund at all, so your family’s money is basically forfeited. You can’t buy any books/dictionaries whatsoever, but they do have free ebooks like Jonathan Swift’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ and Reginald Parnell’s ‘Baby Jane’s Mission’. Although, I admit, these books are great, there are no up to date or newer books for purchase.
Some of these prison telecommunication outfits have been accused of using that same money generated in exchange for political favors. The Mississippi attorney general once blamed GTL for trying to bribe the state’s main corrections officer with commissions so that he would cut MORE profitable deals with the company. In the end, GTL settled for something like $2.5 million. Go figure.
I cannot deny the fact that tablets have definitely given people inside a better and more convenient way to connect with those outside.
It has also improved overall compound behavior, because no one wants to lose their beloved tablet over a disciplinary infraction, thus creating a safer environment for both staff and incarcerated people alike. Being able to email, video chat and download select music, games, movies and t.v. shows give incarcerated people a kind of freedom—if you will. Yet, ALL of the above cost money, so it’s deceptive to call them “free.”
The people who wind up paying for incarcerated people to use these tablets are our loved ones outside, who tend to be poor. Yet, they STILL dish out as much as 25% of their monthly income for phone calls, emails and digital media content so they can maintain connection with those of us doing time.
My hope is that present and future telecommunication services can not only continue to connect us to the outside world, but discontinue these excessive fees and halt the domination of our data. After all, FREE is not really FREE in a system that has usually profited off of inmate labor and their families.
Prison censorship is a topic that has been covered in depth here at Book Riot for many years. Take some time this week to dive into those posts, including:
