Handheld tablets are sold with the expectation that those behind bars can use them to stay in touch with loved ones. But a WIRED investigation found that federal prisons disable the tablets’ chat apps.

A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson reportedly issued a statement in October 2022 confirming that it was “in the process of introducing the Keefe Score 7c tablet into federal institutions, offering it for sale through the commissaries at a cost of $118.” Initially, the bureau said, the tablets could only be used for music downloads and movie rentals on a pay-per-download model. Keefe, though, said on its website that purchasers will be able to use the tablet to communicate “with loved ones using fee-based text, photo, and video-gram messaging.”

Yet, in our reporting we got in contact with nearly 30 federal prisons and didn’t find a single facility that allowed messaging or phone calls on the Keefe Score 7c tablets. We also spoke with more than a hundred federally incarcerated people and their loved ones and couldn’t find a single incarcerated person able to use the phone call, video chat, or messaging functions on their Keefe SCORE 7c tablets.

Several incarcerated folks told WIRED they wouldn’t have purchased the Keefe SCORE 7c tablet had they known the messaging functions would be disabled.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240509124300/https://www.wired.com/story/electronic-tablets-in-federal-prisons-chat-apps-disabled/

  • @Aurenkin
    9•24 days ago

    There’s a mass without roofs

    There’s a prison to fill

    There’s a countries soul that reads ‘post no bills’

    There’s a strike and a line of cops outside of the mill

    There’s a right to obey and a right to kill