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/

  • originalucifer
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    fedilink
    836 months ago

    the united states doesnt believe in rehabilitation. its a system of revenge.

    when viewed through the correct light, it all makes sense… if it doesnt make you sick first.

    • @KillerTofu
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      556 months ago

      And profit! Don’t forget profit!

      • Flying Squid
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        306 months ago

        That’s more to the point. Slavery was never made illegal, it was institutionalized. Literally.

        • @yeahiknow3
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          86 months ago

          Nothing will change until the rich are brought to heel. Nothing.

      • @yeahiknow3
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        edit-2
        6 months ago

        I think profit is even more central to the system than punishment. If the powers that be could make money rehabilitating inmates instead of enslaving them they would. Punishment almost makes sense if people were making these decisions. But there are no people in the chain of authority. Only insects obsessed with turning their victims into profits.

      • @DaddleDew
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        46 months ago

        They’ve figured out that they make more money if their inmates don’t rehabilitate a long time ago.

    • @[email protected]
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      fedilink
      86 months 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

    • @captainlezbian
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      66 months ago

      That fails to acknowledge that we also see prisons as hubs of desperate suckers who will do anything and can demand nothing