I volunteered at a county jail near Columbus for about 6 months last year, and I saw their fancy tablet program up close. Everyone talks about how great it is to give prisoners tablets for education and communication, but the real story is different. The tablets cost $35 a month per inmate, and most guys I talked to just used them to play games or message friends on the outside. The education modules were buggy and nobody used them after the first week. I think that money could go toward actual job training or mental health counselors instead. The tablets felt more like a way for the company to profit than real reform. Has anyone else seen these programs in action and felt the same way?
I used to be all for long sentences, thinking they kept everyone safe. Then last spring I helped with a reading program at the county jail downtown. A guy named Mike had been in for 8 years on a drug charge, and he was more put together than half the people I know on the outside. He ran the book club, helped new guys learn to read. Got out last month and already has a job. It made me wonder if we overdo it with time served and underdo it with actually fixing people. Anyone else see a program like that change your mind on something?
My PO recommended I talk to this guy named Dave at the county lockup after my third stint. He said writing down one thing I was grateful for each day would rewire my brain. After 6 months I got out and landed a gig at a warehouse, and I still scribble in that same spiral notebook. Honestly it kept me from going back to old habits when I was sitting in my cell. Has anyone else had luck with this kind of simple mental trick inside?
I was chatting with a guy who did 6 months in Cook County and he said they don't allow any phone chargers in the cells. So inmates have to buy minutes on those expensive pay phones or rely on one shared charging station for tablets if they got lucky. It hit me that cutting off communication like that probably makes it way harder for people to keep jobs or housing when they get out. Would letting them keep a basic charger actually reduce recidivism a little bit? Has anyone seen a jail that tried this?
Last Tuesday I was sitting in the visiting room at our county jail in Mobile when one of the guys came up to me with this crumpled paper in his hand. He was shaking a little and said "I passed the math section on my third try." I started the library literacy thing six months ago with zero budget, just some old textbooks from the public library and a dry erase board I found in storage. The jail staff kept telling me nobody would stick with it because the noise from the pod makes it hard to focus. We had to move our sessions to the chapel because the guards kept walking through our space. But this guy studied every Tuesday and Thursday for 18 weeks straight even after I caught him using his meal tray as a desk. Now he has a certificate and he's already talking about taking college classes after he gets out. Have any of you dealt with getting books into facilities that ban anything with a spine?
I was at Home Depot last Wednesday picking up supplies for a new rehab workshop idea and a cheap window alarm fell off the shelf and cracked. The $20 sensor I had rigged up for tracking inmate compliance died on me mid-shift, and now I'm stuck wondering if anyone's hacked a Wyze cam into a ankle monitor system without voiding the contract.
I volunteer at the county lockup here in Spokane and for 6 months we kept trying to hand out books about anger management and job skills but nobody showed up. A CO told me straight up 'they want to read stuff that doesn't feel like homework.' So we switched to graphic novels and sci-fi short stories and our attendance jumped from 3 guys to 14 in two weeks. It made me realize we keep trying to force 'rehab' content on people instead of just letting them enjoy reading and building that habit naturally. Has anyone else seen a program get better results by accidentally ditching the 'educational' part?