Putting someone in solitary confinement increases their chances of committing another crime by 15-25% after release. The digital prison doesn't end when the sentence does.

#prisontech #criminaljustice

https://hecknews.com/solitary-confinement-digital-prison-recidivism-study

But looking at the (barely existing) discourse, we learn so much about our current understanding of humanity and techno-positivism. There is still more talk about how we can develop 'ethical algorithms,' even though the discourse shows that our society seemingly doesn't believe that ethical guidelines should be applied to protect all people. What do you think about this? Do you have any opinions? 2/2

#prisontech #surveillancecapitalism #ethics #uberwachung

"If you try to create a system where people do the right thing because they're selfish assholes, you normalize being a selfish asshole. Eventually, the selfish assholes form a cozy little League of Selfish Assholes and turn on the rest of us.”

#CoryDoctorow #Journalism #PrisonTech

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/08/money-talks/

#USA #Prisons #PrisonTech: "Beware of geeks bearing gifts. When prison-tech companies started offering "free" tablets to America's vast army of prisoners, it set off alarm-bells for prison reform advocates – but not for the law-enforcement agencies that manage the great American carceral enterprise.

The pitch from these prison-tech companies was that they could cut the costs of locking people up while making jails and prisons safer. Hell, they'd even make life better for prisoners. And they'd do it for free!

These prison tablets would give every prisoner their own phone and their own video-conferencing terminal. They'd supply email, of course, and all the world's books, music, movies and games. Prisoners could maintain connections with the outside world, from family to continuing education. Sounds too good to be true, huh?

Here's the catch: all of these services are blisteringly expensive. Prisoners are accustomed to being gouged on phone calls – for years, prisons have done deals with private telcos that charge a fortune for prisoners' calls and split the take with prison administrators – but even by those standards, the calls you make on a tablet are still a ripoff." https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

#USA #Prisons #PrisonTech #Telcos: "Prisoners, asylum seekers, drug addicts and other marginalized people are the involuntary early adopters of every form of disciplinary technology. They are the leading indicators of the ways that technology will be ruining your life in the future. They are the harbingers of all our technological doom.

Which brings me to Minnesota.

Minnesota is one of the first states make prison phone-calls free. This is a big deal, because prison phone-calls are a big business. Prisoners are literally a captive audience, and the telecommunications sector is populated by sociopaths, bred and trained to spot and exploit abusive monopoly opportunities. As states across America locked up more and more people for longer and longer terms, the cost of operating prisons skyrocketed, even as states slashed taxes on the rich and turned a blind eye to tax evasion.

This presented telco predators with an unbeatable opportunity: they approached state prison operators and offered them a bargain: "Let us take over the telephone service to your carceral facility and we will levy eye-watering per-minute charges on the most desperate people in the world. Their families – struggling with one breadwinner behind bars – will find the money to pay this ransom, and we'll split the profits with you, the cash-strapped, incarceration-happy state government."

This was the opening salvo, and it turned into a fantastic little money-spinner. Prison telco companies and state prison operators were the public-private partnership from hell. Prison-tech companies openly funneled money to state coffers in the form of kickbacks, even as they secretly bribed prison officials to let them gouge their inmates and inmates' families:"

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/14/minnesota-nice/#shitty-technology-adoption-curve

The #ShittyTechnologyAdoptionCurve Has a Business Model

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-shitty-tech-adoption-curve-has-a-business-model-ee025ad60951

#PrisonTech #FultonCounty #DisciplinaryTechnology