Millions of taxpayers' money has been spent on prisoner laptops
Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been spent on providing prisoners with laptops.
A Freedom of Information Request submitted by the campaign group Senedd Waste revealed that the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) had spent £6.28 million on laptops for prisoners in England and Wales over the past three years.
The framing of the response from the ministry suggests that the primary objective of this scheme is to provide prisoners with access to 'Launchpad', which is an 'in-cell tech programme that gives prisoners secure laptops with digital services in their cells to support their rehabilitation'. The programme has been rolled out in 19 prisons, reaching around 12,900 inmates.
But the MOJ's description of Launchpad continues, going considerably further beyond what the average law-abiding Joe would reasonably consider necessary to rehabilitate a convicted criminal into society.
We are told that the programme is designed to offer 'distraction to empower prisoners on the inside, to live better lives on the outside'. Is the purpose of prison to distract convicted criminals while they serve their sentences? I would call this a hopeless infantalisation of our criminal justice system but the reality is more absurd. Even children on the naughty step are invited to reflect on their behaviour as they serve out their period of exclusion.
The programme is designed to improve inmates' 'peace of mind knowing their laptop can only be used by them', because 'prisoners report they like 'something just for them''. The MOJ further notes that 'prisoners engaging with fresh, relevant, useful and relaxing content 24/7 [emphasis added] report improved mood, reduced self-harm and lower frustration levels'.
In their response to Senedd Waste's Freedom of Information request, the MOJ confirmed that the laptops, which provide prisoners with 'tools and technology to help maintain relationships, support health and wellbeing', are issued to be used 'without supervision'.
Which raises the very logical question, also put to the ministry by the campaign group, what safeguards are in place to ensure the laptops are not used for nefarious purposes.
This query was declined on security grounds, so we are left to arrive at our own conclusion. A spokesman for the DOJ however confirmed to me that 'all in-cell technology is fitted out with tough security measures and cannot be used to browse the internet.'
But tech security is a tricky business. Adding convicted criminals to the mix demonstrates a sort of unfounded self-confidence which only the taxpayer-funded public sector can afford to entertain.
Such as that shown by Humza Yousaf in 2020 as Scotland's Justice Secretary, when £7.6 million was spent on providing inmates – including 'murderers, paedophiles and gangland thugs' – with personal mobile phones to keep in touch with their families during the pandemic, 'to aid the mental health and wellbeing of those in our care and their loved ones.'
The scheme had to be abandoned after the phones were found to be used to commit 'more than 8,000 security breaches, including drug deals, hit jobs and the fire-bombing of family homes' as, rather predictably, illicit SIM cards could be easily used to bypass restrictions.
As we reported last year, the mobile phones were then replaced with landlines, taking the total cost of the scheme to £12 million.
For taxpayers' sake let us hope that the MOJ has more robust security precautions in place.
But is there a framework in place for the ministry to record and assess the success of the programme? At the time of writing this, four days have passed since I posed this question to Shabana Mahmood's department. I have yet to receive an answer.
Hardly a day goes by without our criminal justice system hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons. From releasing dangerous criminals early to providing child-killing terrorists with access to sweet treats in prison, the news reports paint a picture of a system which is completely out of sync with the nation, chipping away at the public's confidence in it.
This story is a depressing reminder of just how great the chasm remains between those who run prison services and those who pay for them.
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