The report

The report draws on a range of evidence, including a literature review, consultation visits, desk research, and advice from international experts. Between October 2021 and December 2022, visits were undertaken to four prisons in England and Wales, and a prison in Guernsey.

Progress

The availability of digital technology in prisons has been transformed since the Covid-19 pandemic. Almost all prisons now have virtual methods for people to stay in touch with their loved ones, and provision in self-service; health; wellbeing and education has significantly expanded. All of these have had positive benefits for prisoners.

The digital wall

The lack of internet access in the weeks preceding release severely hampers prisoners from making practical arrangements. This affects how they spend their time under release on temporary licence (ROTL), when many frantically try to make the most of internet access in the community to undertake resettlement tasks. The stress and unfamiliarity of doing so undermines their digital confidence. Prison staff are acutely aware of this problem and try hard to support prisoners within the boundaries of what is possible. 2024 saw positive progress in the recruitment of specialist roles to support prisoners with accommodation, employment and finance, but the digital wall limits what can be achieved and how swiftly. This results in many people still leaving prison without suitable housing, employment, ID or banking arrangements.

Changing relationships

Digitisation is changing relationships with people in and outside prison. Being able to speak to loved ones in a variety of ways; in privacy; for a longer period; and without the need to travel have all helped people to maintain family ties. The text messaging service, currently only available in private prisons HMP Parc and HMP Five Wells, was especially appreciated for its relational benefits. The report calls on HMPPS to make this available in public sector prisons.

Digitisation is also changing relationships inside prison, with evidence of improved communication between prisoners and civilian staff, better leadership visibility, and technology proving new opportunities for building community and peer mentoring. However, there is some fear among staff about technology replacing quality person-to-person contact, which can inadvertently introduce additional disadvantages particularly for vulnerable prisoners.

Rehabilitation vs security

One of the report’s most significant findings was how prisons are responding to digital risks and navigating the path between security and rehabilitation-related goals. This, of course, is an age old tension.
Prisons have been managing the security of their establishments for a long time, and the methods they deployed for managing risks were adaptations of methods already known to be effective. These included monitoring communications; controlling accessible content; risk-assessed access; and using gradual rollouts to identify and fix problems. The report says that over time, prisons will need to reach some degree of understanding about the level of tolerated risk posed by technology in prison.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The report concludes that overall the update and restart of technology in prisons since the pandemic has been a very positive development. It notes, however, that the rollout of further digital provision is inevitably costly, and the main recommendation is continued investment in equipping prisons with the basic digital infrastructure to move forward in important areas, such as resettlement provision, family contact and self-services.

Other recommendations include:

• Digitising Resettlement Services: A pilot should be established in resettlement prisons to provide prisoners nearing release with secure internet access to arrange housing, jobs, ID, and banking.
• Piloting Internet Access in Open Prisons: Controlled trials of restricted internet access should be established for risk-assessed prisoners to support rehabilitation and resettlement. ​
• Upskilling Staff and Prisoners: Training frameworks to build digital literacy and confidence should be developed to ensure that existing technology is fully utilised. ​
• Global Collaboration: An international Managing Digital Risk forum should be established to share best practices to safely widen access to technology in prisons to more closely mirror life outside. ​

Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here