Jailbreaking in a Broken Jail

Since around 2016, telecommunications companies like ViaPath and Securus (which owns JPay) have issued thousands of tablets in prisons and jails nationwide. These devices are populated with prison-approved content and can’t connect to the internet unless they are hacked and updated with software, a process otherwise known as jailbreaking, or rooting. Jailbreaking a tablet can cost up to $300, and the reasons for doing it vary. Most incarcerated users are more interested in staving off boredom and loneliness and avoiding the high cost of prison communications. Although most people use their tablets for what they are intended—communication, education, and entertainment—prison officials and opponents of tech inside prison have used jailbreaking as an excuse to terminate personal electronic devices altogether. But the dilemma with jailbroken tablets is a challenge that governs a lot of policies in prison. When prison officials use bad behavior from a few as an excuse to take away technology access more broadly, they’re generalizing malicious intent and governing from the lowest common denominator. That’s not an effective way to prepare people for life on the outside, and runs contrary to any rehabilitative end prison might serve.

[Ryan M. Moser is a formerly incarcerated journalist and award-winning author from Philadelphia.]