Re:What It’s Like to Get Online After 25 Years in Prison
by downandout on Tuesday April 23, 2013 @02:07PM
(#5596871)
Presumably the reason why inmates don't have unfettered access to the internet is to make sure they're not running some empire from behind bars
This is the argument that jailers use, but it really doesn't hold water. The vast majority of prisoners pose no threat to the public, online or in person. Preventing Internet access is nothing more than a way to increase recidivism, which keeps prison guard union dues flowing. This is why various correctional officer unions are constantly lobbying for ever more harsh criminal laws and mandatory sentencing schemes - often for victimless crimes. This strategy has worked; the US incarceration rate is the highest in the world - even higher than countries we think of as crazy that tie criminal laws to religious beliefs. Countless lives have been needlessly destroyed, and countless children have grown up without fathers, so that prison and jail guards can have make their $20/hr.
Some form of Internet should be allowed in correctional facilities. Since entire college courses are readily available for free online, you would think it would be a top priority to grant access to them. However, reform simply isn't the goal of the people that have the power to make these decisions. By enabling prisoners to better themselves, they would literally be working themselves out of a job.
This is the argument that jailers use, but it really doesn't hold water. The vast majority of prisoners pose no threat to the public, online or in person. Preventing Internet access is nothing more than a way to increase recidivism, which keeps prison guard union dues flowing. This is why various correctional officer unions are constantly lobbying for ever more harsh criminal laws and mandatory sentencing schemes - often for victimless crimes. This strategy has worked; the US incarceration rate is the highest in the world - even higher than countries we think of as crazy that tie criminal laws to religious beliefs. Countless lives have been needlessly destroyed, and countless children have grown up without fathers, so that prison and jail guards can have make their $20/hr.
Some form of Internet should be allowed in correctional facilities. Since entire college courses are readily available for free online, you would think it would be a top priority to grant access to them. However, reform simply isn't the goal of the people that have the power to make these decisions. By enabling prisoners to better themselves, they would literally be working themselves out of a job.