In 2015, when I was about three years into a 14-year prison sentence, the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) started rolling out the first JPay tablets. The JP5s look more or less like clunky versions of what people in the free world probably picture when they think of tablets, but any resemblance is superficial.
“These ruggedized tablets will come pre-loaded with inmate handbooks as well as motivational books and educational materials specific to an offender’s case plan,” GDC stated in its 2015 announcement. “Devices do not have internet access.”
Everyone incarcerated was issued their first tablet for free, though some people got them long before others. In addition to the underwhelming educational materials and motivational books, each tablet came with educational videos, some essential documents like the PREA manual and the “Inmate Handbook.” And some games like solitaire, but there’s only so much you can do with that.
Despite GDC’s assertion, some devices had internet access within weeks of being issued. Though prison tablets are designed to operate on closed networks—no information in or out that isn’t controlled—tech-savvy prisoners set about bringing the devices online. But it was a while before most of the prison population really became aware of that, let alone administration.
If you didn’t have family or anyone else outside who could send you money, for the first six or eight months your tablet was basically a paperweight. However, hacks for various other features began to hit the mainstream. I knew someone who, as one of many investments, got $1,000 worth of pre-paid text messages on his tablet. He then found the program code that tells the tablet it has that $1,000 in credit, copied it onto a thumb drive, and would transfer it to anyone who wanted it for $5 or $10.
By 2017 most people had been issued a tablet. And found a way to get online.
GDC touted the arrival of tablets as something that addressed the understaffing crisis. Tablets purportedly helped us report sexual assault, and prepared us for re-entry. Tablets did none of these things. What they did do, however, was democratize internet access. Or at least move it in that direction.
Before the tablets, access to the internet was controlled by prisoners who were gang-affiliated, because gangs controlled all contraband including cell phones. At Valdosta State Prison, where I was housed around that time, cell phones were going for $1,200 to $1,500.
This is not uncommon; today, contraband cell phones around the country might cost two or three times that, depending on the specific economic variables of each facility. If you didn’t have one, and you didn’t have money to use the wall phone, you had to go to one of the shot-callers with a cell phone and tell them, Hey, I got three or four soups here, can I get 15 minutes?
This was the only way for most people to “get out there”—to send a text, make a phone call, get on social media, or do whatever you did to connect with the outside world. There had never really been any competition before. But once enough people had access to the internet via tablets, the price of cell phones dropped down to a couple hundred dollars.
You didn’t need to know how to hack the tablet yourself; tech-savvy prisoners were happy to be your internet service provider, for the right price. The many people able and willing to “jailbreak” a tablet were spread out across the prison system, so at some facilities people were paying $400 but at others they were paying $20. Or some cigarettes, or whatever they could trade.
The ability to communicate with the outside world opened up a new era of hustles. People who had never touched a “smart” device in their life, who had been locked up since before the world wide web existed, got on social media for the first time. Some people hadn’t had a single day’s worth of commissary in the past decade, and all of a sudden they could eat.
A middle class emerged, if you look at it that way. Many people found themselves in a position to invest for the first time, but didn’t want the really stigmatized and penalized forms of contraband sitting around their cell. Most of them put their money into the same low-barrier enterprise: tobacco, which was booming like never before after the bans.
Despite being “ruggedized,” the JPay tablets, like anything else in prison, are prone to getting damaged, and as they broke they weren’t necessarily getting replaced. By 2021, GDC’s process of issuing new ones was at a standstill. But by then people had their own ways of getting out there, or maybe a good buddy who’d just lend them the tablet for an hour for free.
It’s strange to think about given that at least 981 people people have died in GDC facilities since 2021, but during the pandemic GDC felt more survivable. Because I gained regular internet access.
Administration portrayed tablets as fixing systemic problems, and today portrays cell phones as causing them. But the internet did not make GDC less safe. Yes, some gang-affiliated prisoners do use it to extort money from the families of people who can’t pay their drug debts. But on a day-to-day level most people aren’t using the internet for extortion. They’re using it to join chatrooms, play video games, talk to their kids, plan their re-entry. They’re just getting through their time.
People in prison want the same things as people outside prison. To be safe; to connect with others; to get out of debt; to make our own decisions. To not be hungry. Power imbalances don’t exist because of cell phones or jailbroken tablets, nor can those make prison an equitable place to live. But the more contraband cellphones and jailbroken tablets, the more ways for more people to eat. That allows for a bit less desperation and despair, and a bit more solidarity and community bonding. More people sharing meals than you used to see.
Top image (cropped) via Oklahoma Department of Corrections. Inset images (cropped) via Washington State Department of Corrections.