6 days ago
In prison, keeping up with technology is key to ‘basic survival' on the outside
Digital access has expanded rapidly in Massachusetts county jails and state prisons in the past two years. Everyone who is incarcerated is now assigned a tablet with access to online classes and vocational training programs, phone calls and email, and movies and music. But advocates say more needs to be done to upgrade correctional facilities' technology infrastructure and equip those serving time with the skills needed to thrive in today's rapidly changing world.
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And the prison telecommunications industry, currently dominated by a handful of private-equity-backed companies, is ripe for disruption.
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It's not just about giving people more skills to prepare for their release, such as paying bills or finding bus schedules online, advocates say. It's about keeping them better connected to the world while they're inside prison walls and making it easier for them to reintegrate back into society when they get out — reducing recidivism and improving public safety in the process.
Many people wind up in prison because they grew up in poverty and can't afford to pay bail or access mental health care, said Virginia Benzan,
who leads the Massachusetts Digital Equity Coalition, a network of nonprofits, libraries, colleges, and municipalities committed to digital equity and advocacy. Having a criminal record compounds these inequities by making it more difficult to secure employment and housing.
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If the incarcerated population doesn't get a grasp on new technologies, that divide continues to grow, Benzan said.
'If we transition
everything online and don't think about how everybody can access it equally and equitably,' Benzan said, 'we're expanding the disparities we already see.'
Hudson, who now works for Prisoners' Legal Services of Massachusetts, said technology was in a 'primitive state' when he was incarcerated. And when he reentered society three years ago with no Internet skills, everything he needed was online: housing, employment, public assistance.
'It's that kind of disconnect from the evolution of what's happening out in society that really sets a person's integration back tenfold,' he said.
The wheels of improvement are in motion.
Along with distributing
And six county sheriffs' departments have
started,
or are about to
launch, digital literacy pilot programs, with
more in the works.
But much more can be done, said April Feng, the Boston-based chief executive of Ameelio, the tech nonprofit spearheading the digital literacy program in local jails. Ameelio is also pushing for something much bigger: to replace for-profit telecommunications providers and develop partnerships with corrections systems around the country that will give states and counties more control over their technology.
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'We just want to divorce profit from rehabilitation,' Feng said.
Current tablet content could be replaced by higher-quality offerings from community organizations such as MIT and the Boston Public Library, which are eager to connect to residents behind the wall, Feng said. And the whole system could be operated much more efficiently by
utilizing free online resources and allowing competition from vendor-neutral networks.
Currently, two companies run the majority of the country's prison communications industry — ViaPath Technologies and Securus Technologies, the latter of which serves Massachusetts facilities. These organizations have generated intense scrutiny for the prices they charge families for phone calls.
Because the prison population is a captive audience and not in a position to make many demands, these companies have little incentive to make improvements, Feng said.
'The invisibility makes it OK,' she said.
In a statement, a Securus spokesperson said the company is 'dedicated to advancing digital access and individual rehabilitation within correctional facilities.'
In Ameelio's potential partnerships in Massachusetts, the software would be paid for by the state, Feng said, with additional infrastructure investments from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute.
Of the 11 states Ameelio is working with, Massachusetts is the most promising because of widespread support for improving the prison experience, Feng said. In late 2023, Massachusetts became the
$22 million in fiscal year 2025.
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'Maintaining and fostering these connections between folks who are in our care and their loved ones on the outside, quite frankly, I find, is probably the most important rehabilitative factor for successful reentry,' said Shawn Jenkins, the state Department of Correction commissioner.
The Department of Correction pays Securus 8 cents a minute for each call. With Ameelio's modern technology and built-in security features, it could be done for a 10th of that cost, Feng said.
Ameelio's local digital-literacy classes, a collaboration with Boston-based nonprofit Tech Goes Home, are being funded by a
Without a firm grasp on modern technology, people who are released from incarceration won't have the skills to fully rejoin society and may wind up back in jail, said Donna Buckley, sheriff of Barnstable County, which is launching a digital literacy program this week.
'It's us as a community … who decides when somebody is incarcerated," she said, 'but it's also our responsibility to make sure we don't continue to punish people post-release by making it impossible for them to reintegrate.'
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Technology can also give people inside prisons the ability to educate the public about their experiences by testifying in legislative hearings or participating in conferences.
'People make mistakes, sometimes really, really bad mistakes, but they still deserve a voice,' said Feng, of Ameelio. 'If they can use their voice to talk about that mistake, maybe other people won't do the same.'
Residents who've served time often don't have internet access when they get out, said Brian Donoghue, chief digital equity officer for the City of Boston. About 45 percent of formerly incarcerated residents use the
of the overall population, according to a
'Digital access has become a gatekeeper for basic survival,' Donoghue said.
Jessenia Cortes started taking classes at the city's Office of Returning Citizens after she was released last summer from South Bay House of Correction, where she served 87 days for assault and battery. Cortes grew up in public housing in South Boston and was in and out of foster care; she was abused and sexually assaulted, and fell into bad relationships as an adult.
'I really wasn't able to deal with my pain, so when I got mad I lashed out,' she said.
She's learning new computer skills in a
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And she's hopeful these new skills will help lead to a new chapter: 'They're giving me a purpose,' she said.
But these type of grant-funded opportunities are fleeting. Due to federal funding cuts, the city's digital equity classes — and other programs that would have been part of a
This story was produced by the Globe's
team, which covers the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston. You can sign up for the newsletter
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Katie Johnston can be reached at
