Abstract:

An important recent ingredient in efforts to integrate technology into the carceral system has been the use of personal digital devices with embedded software that offers the opportunity for communication, entertainment, reading, and, in some cases, education. The degree of deployment ranges from every prisoner having an individual device with embedded capability for search, learning modules, even administrative activities like filing a grievance, to tablets available for specific educational programs only, to the case where prisoners must use a shared device located in their general unit area.

Tablets would seem to be an almost perfect solution to several problems. They can meet the rigorous prison requirements prohibiting unsecured outside communication. For educational programming lesson–focused formats allow the learner to proceed gradually through a specific course and eventually navigate a complete curriculum. Perhaps the best example of this is the use of embedded lessons leading to the high school equivalency qualification, the General Education Development (GED).

But tablets in prisons have unique challenges, too, which can be separated into four categories. First, the institutional decision to employ tablets in jails is often determined by a single purpose or focus, like family visits, and not a broader inclusive vision which emphasizes correctional education. Second, there is often a serious lack of digital literacy on the part of the inmates, thereby lessening their ability to leverage the use of tablets. Online learning requires discipline, focus, and competence with digital technology. Third, there are numerous challenges associated with the general demographics of prisoners – below-average high school completion rates, addiction, and other medical problems. And fourth, in jails and prisons, it is not clear that teachers, mentors, and in-house trainers are able to offer the kind of triage for differential needs of inmates in the complicated implementation of online learning.

How can it be determined whether tablets really make a difference? The Risk Need Responsivity (RNR) classification system, long a standard, well-accepted approach to rationalizing and planning for new approaches in correctional education, would seem to be the ideal technique. Its purpose is to facilitate assigning individual inmates to appropriate programs based on risk factors that consider offending behavior. There is little indication that RNR approaches are being implemented with respect to tablets, even though they are widely used for other correctional education modalities. This paper will summarize the effect of these four challenges and also will offer general and specific recommendations that could be considered for implementation by Departments of Correction to leverage the considerable opportunity offered by tablet-based education.

Keywords:

Prison tablet programs, correctional education, evidence-based studies, Risk Need Responsivity (RNR) classification system, digital literacy.