The last thirty years have seen a revolution in the role of computing technology generally, and internet access specifically, in the basic patterns of American social, economic, and civic life. Yet in state prisons across the country, there has been little movement toward developing comprehensive, forward-looking policies regulating their use in incarceration. Whether it’s a question of educational programming, constitutional rights, or successful reentry, prison internet policies still rely on ideas and practices that predate the internet revolution. This report seeks to explore and recommend policies for online access for people incarcerated in New Jersey state prisons.
In order to make such recommendations, this study reviews research and state policies related to computing inside prisons, with an emphasis on internet access. Most of our work focuses on research and policy within the United States, although we also consider examples from other countries and regions when useful. Overall, research on computing in prisons is scant, and policy implementation at the level of the individual institution is opaque. Nevertheless, we found enough existing research and promising new policies to generate claims and make recommendations. The New Jersey Department of Corrections shifted computing policy just as we completed our research, and the effectiveness of the implementation is not yet clear. We make the following recommendations in consideration of what we know of current policy.
Recommendations
- We recommend convening a state task force on the 21st century prison dedicated to developing a comprehensive plan for:
- Developing competency in the “digital realm,” as well as the current and future place of advanced technologies and “smart prisons.”
- Exploring implications of new computing technologies for constitutional law, criminal law, and social policy.
- Reviewing sentencing law and practice to consider internet deprivation, limitation, and/or monitoring as a form of liberty deprivation as potentially distinct from physical incarceration. These laws and practices should consider the important distinctions among types of use, including procedures and rationales for denial or granting of access during incarceration and parole.
- Determine whether and how various parts of cyberspace are a public sphere in terms of victim’s rights.
- The Department of Corrections should commission periodic research reviews of the safety, cost, and benefit, of emerging computer technologies, including its current tablet program and internet access policies. State universities are natural partners for this work.
- The Department of Corrections should consider making modern laptop/desktop computers on par with those used in universities and workplaces, available on a case-by-case basis for educational, vocational, prosocial, and wellness purposes.
- The Department of Corrections should consider developing a comprehensive policy for internet access on a limited, case-by-case basis in consideration of initial sentencing, concerns about institutional and societal safety, victim’s rights, incarcerated person’s rights, educational, vocational, prosocial and wellness purposes.
- The Department of Corrections should be more publicly transparent about its computing policies.
- Software platforms open to content development by third parties, such as Edovo, should be leveraged to enable partnerships with higher education, state agencies, faith-based organizations, and non-profits within New Jersey.