The Tennessee Department of Correction began rolling out tablets in late 2024. South Central Correctional Facility, where I’m currently incarcerated, was the final prison to receive them, and so, when the long-awaited team from ViaPath Technologies arrived on May 20, we were quite excited.
Prison tablets don’t connect us to the internet, but do provide a platform through which we can exchange messages with loved ones, and access to pre-approved downloads like songs or news articles.
Many people who were in their living units the morning of May 20 received tablets. But early that afternoon, while my coworkers and I were walking back to the living unit, we saw the six-person team going up the sidewalk with all their boxes. Of course we were eager to get our own tablets, so this seemed concerning. Someone asked, “Are you leaving?”
To which one of the representatives responded, “Yes. They’re pulling out dicks and knives.” And left.
On May 21 they returned to continue distributing tablets. One rep who requested anonymity told Filter that the previous day, while they were bringing tablets to a living unit that’s heavily gang-affiliated, some prisoners had pulled up their pants legs to reveal shanks hidden in their socks, in an apparent attempt to intimidate the reps into giving them other tablets that hadn’t been passed out yet. Genitalia were reportedly flashed at the women on the team.
“I’ve been all over the country doing this, and by far this is the worst prison I’ve ever been at,” the ViaPath rep said. “There’s no real security.”
When the team reported the incidents, an officer allegedly shrugged and said, That’s how they live down here. No action was taken. TDOC and CoreCivic, the private contractor that operates South Central and three other TDOC facilities for profit, did not respond to Filter‘s inquiries.
“After that we got the hell out of there,” the rep concluded.
A ViaPath rep said that they’d done this in more than 20 states, and this was the first prison where they’d felt unsafe.
When asked what was standard at other facilities, the rep said that usually when their team goes into a living unit, staff will have addressed the prisoners there ahead of time and explained that if anyone was disrespectful or threatening, they would potentially be going to solitary confinement, and at the very least wouldn’t be getting their tablets that day. The rep told Filter that they’d distributed tablets to prisons and county jails in more than 20 states, and this was the first time they’d felt unsafe. Another rep standing nearby nodded in assent while they were talking.
One prisoner who recently transferred here from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution told Filter that during that facility’s tablet rollout, ViaPath reps were on-site for two to three weeks. Another who recently transferred from Turney Center Industrial Complex made similar comments. But the team has not been seen at South Central since May 22.
ViaPath, the company formerly known as Global Tel Link (GTL), which has for years been the nation’s largest telecommunications provider for prisons and jails, did not respond to Filter‘s inquiry.
Unfortunately, two-and-a-half days here does not seem to have been sufficient. As of May 27, a list posted in the 128-person pod where I live states that 18 chargers don’t work; six tablets won’t turn on; four headphone sets don’t work; 13 families haven’t been able to add money to the tablet accounts; and nine families haven’t been able to set up accounts at all.
In order to message us, outside contacts have to add funds to their own “Friends & Family Account,” but also to a separate “Inmate Account” so that we can message them back. In some cases, customer support numbers that people are instructed to call merely loop callers through automated responses, which say they’ll receive a call back within the next few minutes, which doesn’t happen.
Glitches and non-user friendly interfaces are the norm for tablets in prisons and county jails across the country, but one can’t help but think that a few issues could be smoothed out if the facility had sufficient security to allow the team to stay for two or three weeks, rather than two or three days.
At least one person never received a tablet to begin with.
The payment structure here requires that we pay per minute while using the tablets, rather than pay per message or per download. Since we don’t have the means to transfer funds from our facility debit accounts to tablet accounts, or at least not yet, so far I seem to be one of the few people who’s been able to start poking around and familiarizing myself with the different features.
Several people expressed excitement about the free educational courses on the tablets—there is no educational programming of any kind at South Central—which tell us we can earn certificates that our counselors will print out for us. We asked a counselor about this, which appeared to be the first she had heard of it.
At least one person in my unit never received a tablet to begin with. Everyone’s been asking around on his behalf. He was initially told that he’d definitely get one on May 27, but it’s unclear whether this was meant to appease him or whether some staff still expected the ViaPath team to come back on that day.
The only remaining source of potential information is the facility’s ViaPath point person, who recently took on the job in addition to continuing his duties as a church service volunteer. If we have questions, we’re supposed to write them down and give them to him so he can email ViaPath and get back to us.
Image (cropped) via Tennessee Department of Correction/YouTube
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