This spring Securus Technologies, a communications firm that markets its products to incarcerated people, gave all prisoners in Washington State tablets with the ability to make phone calls, bringing new meaning to the word cellphone.
Securus Technologies provides communication services such as email, phone, and digital media content—including games, movies and television programs, for prisoners. The service is provided by putting “free tablets” in the hands of prisoners, the company then profits off prisoners and their families by providing these services.
Not long after the tablets arrived, I saw a group of prisoners huddled around a table playing a Pokémon video game. They sat, immersed in their own worlds, faces buried in the tablets they had just received, as they practiced a new kind of social distancing—one brought on, not by COVID-19, but by Securus.
I have lived through many changes in prison, but none like this one. During my twenty-six years of incarceration, I can remember when we were allowed to have personal clothing, music rooms in which to play instruments, hobby shops that allowed ceramics and wood working, and could smoke cigarettes. I am one generation removed from prisoners being able to ride Harley-Davidsons in the big yard.
But all the previous changes had one thing in common: Something was taken from us. At first glance, this change appeared to be different—something had been given to the prisoners. Yet this gift was too good to be true—as they say, nothing in this world is free. Ambivalent to what we lost, many reveled in the joy of digital isolation that came with the gift of these tablets.
“This is a gamechanger,” Dwuan Spraggins-Conroy, a prisoner who has spent more than ten years inside, told me the day after the tablets came in. His sentiment is shared among the majority of prisoners at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, Washington.
For several years now, we have had similar, yet more primitive, digital devices available to us. A previous company, JPay, allowed us to access email, music, games, and movies on devices that the prisoners purchased. It was clunky, archaic technology. The Securus tablet—and the digital content that comes with it—is overwhelmingly superior, vaulting us, overnight, into the twenty-first century.
Prisoners can now attend online classes through Khan Academy. We can watch podcasts on topics about release plans, relationships, and spirituality. There are many classic games available that some of us grew up on, like Pokémon or—my personal nostalgic delight—old-school Madden. But the largest benefit, without question, is the phone function itself. With these devices, we can now make calls to loved ones from the privacy of our cells.
For as long as I have been incarcerated, we have made calls on phones mounted to walls or posts in day-rooms and prison yards. Accessing these phones meant navigating lines of other prisoners also trying to call home and disputes over who was next in line that often devolved into violence. We were never free from the prying ears of the prisoner next to us. It was often a dangerous and tense endeavor.
Recently, I laid in bed and talked with my girlfriend for an hour. We had never had such a relaxed and easy conversation. I felt free to speak, to be myself. I was more ready to laugh and better able to focus on the things she shared. And I knew that if I needed to call back, there wouldn't be a line with an hour-long wait. We could talk as long as we wanted.
This improvement will help prisoners maintain healthy ties to those we need the most upon release, and will likely result in reduced recidivism.
Securus has impacted the prison environment in another way, too. Many of us have noticed how quiet it has been since they handed out these devices. There used to be a normal, incessant noise that echoed from people in the hall or in common areas—hooting, screaming, and laughing in a confined concrete space has a way of reverberating through your bones.
The constant noise has been, for as long as we can remember, as much a part of prison as bars and razor wire. In some ways, it added an additional layer of oppressiveness. But now, as my cellmate Darrel Jackson put it, it’s so quiet that “you can hear an Orca fart in the ocean."
The social environment has changed here, and this fact is not lost on those of us inside. It’s mostly a positive shift , but I can’t help but notice that this gift comes at a price: We’ve joined the throngs of masses captured by their individual digital devices.
The group of prisoners playing Pokémon are not the only ones completely attached to their screens. We are all in here sharing this confined physical space while practicing this new form of social distancing. Communication between people who used to talk daily has devolved into grunts and nods; eye contact has now become rare, reserved for when someone wants to emphasize a point.
Over the years, volunteers who come into the prison and participate in social groups have commented on how refreshing it is to sit in a room full of people who are engaged with each other. I’ve heard stories from them about how common it is among people on the outside who sit at tables together, with eyes and thoughts locked on their digital feeds, ignoring each other. Until now, I had never observed this behavior firsthand.
People on the outside are, by now, accustomed to this phenomenon. Some laugh and dismiss it as normal. But others question if we are experiencing a form of dystopia resulting from diminished social interactions. I wonder if this latter consequence will soon manifest within the prison.
Social skills are crucial to maintaining peace here. The ever-present threat of violence from other prisoners is a reality of the prison experience. Effective forms of communication, good eye contact, empathy, and listening skills have prevented many misunderstandings in an environment where so many different kinds of people are forced to live in a small box. I am concerned that, as people become more disconnected, this know-how will recede, and violence may increase.
But I also have other concerns.
I have spent more than twenty-five years of my life behind bars. I am an expert on what it feels like to be imprisoned. And I can tell you that, despite the positives I’ve highlighted, these tablets are another form of incarceration. We are now captured by the State of Washington and by these devices, the latter dominating our attention and the former dominating our bodies.
My favorite author, Henry David Thoreau, once wrote, “And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him.” By this logic, I’m not so sure that Securus gave us tablets, so much as it acquired a literal captive market. And Securus has siphoned up unfathomable amounts of data from prisoners and their loved ones as well.
In the user agreement, the company reveals that they are a subsidiary of Aventiv Technologies. Through Securus, Aventiv collects personal identifiers such as name, drivers license numbers, Social Security numbers, and biometric data including voice, image, and voice pattern information from all users. Aventiv also stockpiles data on prisoners’ court appearances, and on the job titles, companies, and work addresses of outside users. Additionally, they collect credit card information, bank account information, IP and MAC addresses, and through a feature in one app they even collect geolocation data. (Editor’s note: Aventive did not respond to requests for comment on this user agreement).
Maybe this explains why Securus is only charging five cents per minute for phone calls? Don’t get me wrong, five cents adds up fast, and it is still a much higher rate than people who are not in prison pay. But it’s a marked improvement from the thirteen cents per minute we were previously paying through JPay. I wonder what the real value of this data is? Maybe, based on that value, Securus should be paying us rather than charging us to use their phone service.
I can’t help but see the irony in how these devices connect us to information, people, and things far away while disconnecting us from the people, places, and things most near. We should all think more about what we gain and what we lose through this technology. In the meantime, I have a few calls to make, and I'm halfway through a season of Madden.