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Comment by panzer_wyrm | Hacker News Reader

Why is actually acceptable to limit the communications of prisoners at all. They have their mobility limited - it is punishment enough. Not sure how limiting them from the internet and cell phones helps with their debt to society.

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To prevent commissioning of crimes is probably the best reason. For example smuggling in drugs, arranging escapes, harassing victims, etc.

All of those are crimes and easily trackable. If you want to make it life sentence be my guest.

If crimes were easily trackable and prosecutable, we probably wouldn't have such a hard time keeping criminals in jail. We still have crimes committed in jail that don't get properly solved, much less sentenced.

Also, this isn't necessarily about dumb kids being busted for drugs or stealing, but organized crime members. The possibility of them ordering hits from inside prison walls or tracking down people in witness protection kind of makes people nervous about letting them talk with anyone and everyone. That's not to say it's the most effective means, since smuggling, messengers, visitors and other means still exist for passing information. But that's not really an excuse to not try at all.

I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of prisoners are not mafia bosses who order hits from prison. I'd consider it totally okay to isolate these people.

But most prisons are filled with dumb kids busted for drugs or stealing, and I see no reason why we should make them even more miserable... I'd rather have them keep their connections in the outside world, so they have more of a chance to get back on their feet once they are released.

(Also, I'm pretty sure an prisoner browsing Facebook all day makes a lot less trouble than one who has nothing to do all day...)

Prisoners already have communication mediums that guards can monitor and if they want to talk to someone with no prying ears or eyes, they can talk to a lawyer. Prisoners should have no need for cell phones or access to unrestricted communications. Yes, there are some young people in prison that really shouldn't be but there are plenty of dangerous gang members in there that should be totally removed from their "business responsibilities".

> Prisoners already have communication mediums that guards can monitor

Those are often exploitatively priced, a situation Ajit Pai has sought to preserve:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/republican-led-f...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/technology/fcc-prison-pho...

That's a different issue and shouldn't be resolved by letting prisoners have unrestricted access to cell phones.

But it's not solved so the smuggling will continue.

You forget that mafia bosses don't get put into jail for being mafia bosses. Many times they got caught with smaller crimes, like tax evasion.

We know that some prisoners continue to commit crime, and that they use mobile phones to do so.

I'm strongly in favour of rehabilitation. I don't think prison works and it should be used far less than it is. But even I think that control of mobile phones is important.

And it's not just about phones. A prisoner could easily pack Stanley knife blades in a safe package and put those up his anus.

There are some important human rights balances here. We can't insert fingers into the anus of all prisoners just in case, but we do need to protect prisoners from violent crime.

This is especially true because there are a range of different types of detention against your will - patients in a mental health hospital on a short assessment stay; people in a police cell overnight; medium term patients in MH hospital; long term patients in a forensic hospital (they committed an act of serious violence while they were mentally ill and were sent to hospital); long term prisoners who keep committing acts of violence while in prison. We can't perform the same levels of checking on all of them.

There has been some work on this, on checking what type of airport scanners work or don't work for detecting blades. It's a bit scary to see what gets through.

Let's say you are in prison for online fraud. You get internet access. You'll continue to fraud.

Sure, because segregating and separating prisoners from everything is a great way to reintegrate them back in society...

Oh, that. We don't care about reintegration. We don't care if they survive outside of prison. And with what little educational abilities have been destroyed, are we surprised in the least that they go back to criminal actions to make money?

So you're saying people guilty of computer fraud should retain access to computers?

Don't get me wrong, I do agree that the US justice system is focused on punishment instead of revalidation and there's a lot that can be improved there, but this is about giving people who have a problem access to that which enabled their problem.

To be fair we do let people convicted of arson continue to have access to oxygen

Eh, yes, because IOT makes everything a computer on the internet? That law cuts them off from shoes, cups and cars? Basically a mandatory tamper-proof store of a felonys internet use and access would be enough. If the evidence is not there - or they went astray..

Does any limit imposed on the inmate's communications prevent reintegration?

I'm not saying the current system - which is very exploitative of inmates, with extremely expensive calls - is anywhere near OK. But that doesn't mean you can't have provide inmates with decent communication accessibilities without having uncontrolled cellphones with them.

The balance has been struck all wrong, though, with thinking like that totally dominating the policy discussion. Yes, there are some inmates (like fruadsters, drug kingpins) who will use any communication channel for more crime, but there are probably many more that won't. I'm for keeping the latter in close contact with their non-criminal family, friends, and support networks in the interests of keeping recidivism low as well as moral reasons.

Meanwhile, we have private companies profiting off of exploitatively-priced communications services for inmates, when both they and their families are often in little position to pay the excessive charges:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/republican-led-f...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/technology/fcc-prison-pho...

The best (if not most profitable) solution, IMHO, is to offer inmates a low cost to free, monitored telephone service that they can use to call people on a white-list. If they're found to be abusing it, it can be taken away, but it should be otherwise unlimited.

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