In prison, tablets give inmates connection to the outside world

Sitting in a unit at the MCI-Norfolk prison, David Class flicked his fingers on a tablet, scrolling through the salaries associated with careers such as electrician and accountant, and noting dollar amounts stretching toward six figures and beyond.

“That’s good money, yeah?” he said, flashing a grin.

It is the kind of money he would like to make when he is released from prison in a few years. And so he is at work already, using his state-issued tablet to take courses to become certified as an HVAC tech, a job he can see himself doing when he gets out.

Under an expanded education program, all Massachusetts Department of Correction facilities now have electronic tablets available for inmates, complete with educational programs, job-training courses, an assortment of books and podcasts, and means of connecting to the outside world, such as through audio and video calls. They may seem like common devices for many households. But for incarcerated people, they can be the only line users have to stay connected with the outside world — professionally, socially, and technologically.

“We don’t want to fall behind. We can’t,” said Class, 47, a Western Massachusetts native who is nearly halfway through a 10-year sentence for trafficking cocaine.

He’s done state and federal time before, he said, but the goal now is to come out of prison with a path toward a career that can help him stay out.

The Department of Correction launched the tablet program at MCI-Shirley in 2022, before expanding to all state correctional facilities this year. The department has issued about 5,700 tablets to its population of about 6,200 prisoners.

According to the department, the tablets operate on a “secure internal network” and don’t have general access to the internet. The users only have access to secured programs through Orijin, a technology company that contracts with jail systems.

The Department of Correction signed a two-year contract with Orijin last August, and the program cost $7.9 million in its first year, including the purchase of the tablets, the software license agreement, and internet infrastructure upgrades, the department said. The costs drop to $5 million in the second year of the contract.

Data from last year showed that nearly 5,000 incarcerated people used the tablets, for about 50 to 70 minutes a day, according to the department. That included more than a combined 252,000 hours of content and more than 1,150 virtual classrooms.

The department said Massachusetts inmates’ course completion rate was more than double the industry standard, with more than 400 earning certificates in OSHA-10 job safety training and 62 receiving HVAC certifications.

Abbe Nelligan the department’s assistant deputy commissioner of re-entry, said the tablets also have programs for creating résumés and cover letters, and ways of contacting professors who teach classes already available to people in prisons and jails.

“Those who take part in programming have less recidivism,” Nelligan said.

The tablets allow access to drug and violence rehabilitation services, and, in March, the department added an application to the tablets that allows incarcerated people to place audio and video calls. Inmates also are able to access the records of courses and other programs they’ve completed behind bars, which can be useful for their upcoming parole hearings.

MCI-Norfolk, the largest medium-security facility in the state, holds about 1,200 inmates. Its dated infrastructure conjures prison stereotypes from another era: thick gray walls easily 15 feet high, punctuated by guard towers at the corners, forming a large square in the middle of the bucolic town of Norfolk. And yet even in this century-old prison, with its archaic infrastructure, incarcerated people can connect to the tablets in any of the buildings.

Class said he would like to see more legal-research resources on the tablets. As someone who’s been in and out of prison over the years, he said he wants to learn more about the law.

The tablets, made by Lenovo, are encased in a chunky, durable case. Nelligan said they may be taken away from prisoners who misuse them, including for violence, though Nelligan said the state does not have a count of such incidents.

Besides, Class said, not many prisoners would risk losing them: “It is a precious commodity.”

One popular feature is their library of e-books. Inmates at MCI-Norfolk spent more than 27,000 hours reading them, the Department of Correction said.

Christopher Merced, a 32-year-old from Boston, was one of them. He said he likes reading Dan Brown books such as “The Da Vinci Code.” A native Spanish speaker, he’s learning English, he said in his new language, and working on his GED. He’s taking an assortment of classes and also using English-Spanish translator apps.

“I go to school every day,” he said.

Merced, like Class, is in prison for drug-dealing offenses and said he has about five years left on his sentence. He said he eventually wants to be able to work as an electrician.

Class also said he likes to read, but he’s more of a nonfiction guy who likes self-help books and literature about religion. The readings spark conversations in the yard.

“We recommend books to each other,” Class said.

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