Public Acceptability of Prisoners’ Access and Use of Digital Technologies in the UK

People and their Relationships with Technology

Technology is not neutral. It impacts our social, psychological, economic, and political lives and contexts. As a result, our perceptions and attitudes towards its use inform us about the value placed on technology in varying contexts such as economic, cultural, social, and personal (See Helsper, 2012). The reach of technology is now extensive, resulting in transformations in our homes, schools, hospitals, and workplaces. As a consequence, our attitudes towards technology are diverse and complex. For example, parents seek to restrict, supervise, and limit access for their children. Some workplaces even restrict employees’ access to the Internet, and tight security measures are built into educational settings. These practices are linked to attitudes of use, and so risk is managed to reduce harm particularly for ‘vulnerable’ groups. These technological restrictions apply acutely to our prisons (Knight, 2015).

According to experts on digital inequality (Selwyn, 2004), our beliefs and values about technology are complex and woven (or not) into our everyday lives. The manner in which organizations and policy makers respond to technology contributes to how we talk about or ‘frame’ technology within popular and policy discourses. In many respects, these discourses can polarize the manner in which we understand technology – that it is good for us (optimist) OR it is bad for us (skeptic). The following section provides the context for technology within prison settings, discussing concepts that have particular resonance for people in prison.

Context of Digitization in Prisons

Small pockets of digitization in carceral settings are evolving, with some services for imprisoned individuals becoming established, such as self-service kiosks, email, and video conferencing (Knight, 2015). The advent of COVID-19 has brought an increased demand for digital services, such as video calls as a result of strict social-distancing policies (Knight, 2020). However, these developments remain small and localized (See Mann, 2017). Molleman and van Os (2016) global survey of prison services outlines the significant digital disparities across most jurisdictions. The authors found that most areas use technology for information management systems. Unsurprisingly, prisoners’ use of technology is still very restricted to those countries in developed areas. Development is slow, and the penal digital revolution is slowly unfolding and is certainly uneven. The reasons for these disparities are complex and present a number of challenges for prison managers and policy makers. Further, such challenges are also deeply rooted in concerns of how prison digitization initiatives, interventions, and their investments are perceived by the public. With many jurisdictions’ experiencing growth in prison populations that typically presents a range of complex vulnerabilities, plans to invest in digitization are perceived to be contentious and sensitive (see Funnell, 2017).

There is a long history of cautious correctional system response to development, particularly in relation to digital and communications technologies. Mechanisms like the ‘separate and silent system’ and strict controls to limit prisoners’ access to mediated technologies like print media, radio, and television represent emotive organizational responses to prisoners’ communicative rights (Knight, 2016). Access to digital services across many jurisdictions remains privileged and no prison service provides a blanket provision. This, as Martin Narey, the former Head of the Prison Service in England and Wales, describes, is framed by fear

When I joined the prison service in 1982, people were terrified of allowing prisoners to have FM radios … (Saul, 2015)

In many respects, services can become paralyzed by these perceived attitudes, and political rhetoric can stifle change due to the fear of being accused of going ‘soft’ on crime.

Penal populism has been used to describe this kind of response. As a result,

… penal populism was effectively mediated and translated into law, rather than writing it itself. In doing so, government officials brought into play some of their own interests as well as those of other less visible interest groups (Pratt & Clark, 2005, p. 310)

Notably, public thinking about prison services and the impact on communities matters. Yet, as many public opinion surveys demonstrate, public views about prison are ambivalent and contradictory, and there are low levels of confidence in the penal system. In sum, the view is that prison ‘doesn't work’. It is significant that the ways in which opinion is measured is varied with some surveys seeking opinion, attitude, acceptance, receptiveness, or sympathy (see Roberts & Hough, 2011). In the next sections, we review some key findings from a range of public surveys and reflect on our findings regarding the public's views on prisoners’ access to digital technologies. How receptive is the contemporary public with respect to prisoners’ access to digital technology? For the public ‘consumer,’ can prison ‘work’ with digital technologies deployed as a rehabilitative intervention?

What the Public Thinks about Prison and Imprisonment

As Jewkes (2013) points out, our experience of prison is second-hand, delivered as re-presented experiences, via the mass media. Thus, ‘prisons continue to be constructed in popular and political discourse within a very narrow framework’ (Jewkes, 2007, p. 447). The extent to which this is helpful is debatable, and this often means that opinion can become skewed. As Roberts and Hough (2005) suggest, the public on the whole are unfamiliar with the prison system. Jewkes explains that,

When it comes to ‘real’ or ‘realistic’ representations of imprisonment, which many inmates experience as brutalizing, dehumanizing and intolerable, public indifference prevails and some of the worst atrocities go unnoticed and unchecked. (Jewkes, 2007, p. 448)

This lack of understanding means that certain discourses get recycled into the public's imagination. For example, believing that prison is easy, people in prison are idle, and incarceration does not work. This, then, equates to low levels of public confidence – cynicism and skepticism in the prison system and what it is capable of doing (Roberts & Hough, 2005). These narratives of imprisonment are powerful and can manipulate how punishment (and rehabilitation) are delivered. While this is important, the synchronicity of opinion and action becomes misaligned. Public opinion research in the United States has found that rehabilitation is rated a priority, followed by deterrence; punishment was considered the lowest priority (Maguire, 1995).

Flanagan and Caulfield (1984, p. 31) discuss the ‘improper use of public opinion data,’ and warn that such surveys should not conflate the complexity of the public's views of prison policy. This highlights the need for such surveys to be triangulated, with qualitative accounts that enable social scientists to expand knowledge with respect to the origins of public sentiments about prisons. Moreover, these explorations should also be redirected not just at the punitive end of the issue, but also fully explore how rehabilitation is conceived and understood.

What Shapes Public Attitudes of Prison?

Much less is known about the shaping of these views, and most explanations point towards the fact that our insights into prison are received second hand (Allen, 2013). The diversity of opinion can be explained by varying attitudes across different jurisdictions. For example, the UK public has been more in favour of imprisonment compared to other countries (Van Kesteren et al., 2000). Economic situations also impact our attitudes towards offenders of crime. For example, in periods of prosperity and optimism, the public tend to be more sympathetic to offenders. Demographic characteristics also shape how people view the criminal justice system. Wood and Viki (2001) found that older people tend to be more punitive than younger people, and those that work in manual occupations tend to be more punitive. They also report that heavy television viewers and especially those that consumed crime programmes demonstrate increased desires to be more punitive towards offenders. However, being a victim of crime does not necessarily lead to more punitive attitudes (Allen, 2013). The consumption of newspapers is also an indicator. For example, broadsheet newspaper readers see increasing prison numbers as a bad idea (Mori, 2003). The following section describes this study's public survey to explore attitudes on prisoners’ use of digital technology in prisons. The intent is to assist policy makers, service providers, and key stakeholders to understand how their current tax-payers and citizens perceive this development. Knight and Van De Steene (2019, p. 38) undertook a survey of correctional Information Communication Technology (ICT) managers and found that their informed status did indicate less punitive attitudes towards prison digitization.

Participants

Two hundred and thirty-seven participants took part in this study on prisoners’ access to digital technology, all of whom were recruited through Qualtrics Research Panels. The sample was stratified for age ranges (25–34; 35–44; 45–54; 55–64), and comprised 116 males and 121 females. The age range for participants was 25–64 years, with a mean of 43.16 (SD = 10.882). Qualtrics Research Panels is recognized as an industry leader in the field of data collection, and were chosen for both speed of data collection and robustness of the sampling. All responses were screened at the point of participation by Qualtrics to remove any individual that completed the survey too quickly, or who responded repetitively to more that 80% of the questions asked in the survey. Participants received a small reimbursement for their time of approximately £4. Participation in the Qualtrics panel is open to anyone who enrols on their system, but obviously is restricted to those with internet access. However, as the research focused directly on aspects of digital inclusion and digital literacy, we felt that individuals with direct knowledge of the digital environment would be more relevant to the nature of the study.

Of the complete sample, 60% reported their occupational status as being full-time employed; 16% were part-time employed; 4% Self-Employed; 14% Unemployed and 6% were retired. While all participants were residents in the UK, we recognize that this might not be entirely representative of the UK population. Due to the limited size of our sample, we acknowledge that this is a snapshot of the population.

The Scale: Attitudes towards Digital Technology in Secure Environments (ATD-ISE)

A scale was developed for the study to assess key factors associated with attitudes towards the use and implementation of digital technology in secure environments. An initial 33-item scale was produced and included questions designed to probe attitudes related to aspects of security, prisoner rehabilitation, prison environment, and financial implications (See Attitudes towards Digital Technology in Secure Environments Scale (ATD-ISE). (dmu.ac.uk) to access full scale). Participants were asked to respond to each item on a 5-point Likert Scale (1 = Strongly Agree, 5 = Strongly Disagree). Example items included, ‘I think that the use of digital technology in prisons could serve to improve prisoners’ quality of life,’ and ‘I think that giving people in prison access to digital technologies could reduce reoffending rates’. For the 33-item scale, a Cronbach's alpha of 0.905 was obtained, indicating good reliability. Possible scores on the ATD-ISE range from 33–165, with a higher score indicating a more negative attitude towards digital technology use in secure environments. The Cronbach's alpha calculation is an internal reliability check of the questionnaire. It is carried out to ensure that all of the items included are ‘related’ to one another (See Calvani et al., 2008).

Procedure

The above materials were combined into one survey that was distributed online via Qualtrics Research Panels during a one-week period. Participants were given full details of the study's aims, as well as being informed about their right to withdraw and informed consent. Upon completion of the study, participants were presented with a full debrief sheet.

Security and Surveillance

Questions in relation to security, risk, and cyber security identified a fear of reoffending as a result of digital access and use. 80% felt that victims might be contacted if people in prison could have an online experience, and 86% felt that this might help people in prison to continue criminal activities. While these fears were expressed by most of the sample surveyed, 87% had an expectation that emails would be censored; 94% agreed that they should be screened for sensitive information.

Compliance, Order & Reducing Reoffending

Despite this strength in attitude when asked, respondents acknowledged the purposeful and rehabilitative benefits of digital use. Access to digital technology in prison is conceived by half (50%) of the respondents to be of help in improving digital skills, making better use of time in prison, enhancing learning opportunities, as well as assisting in locating and securing a job. The public was less convinced that digital technology can improve self- confidence (41%). There was an even smaller proportion of respondents who perceived a direct relationship between digital access and use and a reduction in reoffending (22%).

Privilege and Access

The survey does highlight that there is initial ‘nervousness’ about inmates’ having access to digital technology. Over half (54%) of the survey respondents said in the first instance that they were against access. For example, they would want emails to be screened (73%). However. when pressed to respond to further questions, they acknowledged that access had to be earned (57%) – because the same number believed digital technology to be a luxury and should not be ‘free’ without cost and/or compliance. Conversely, a lower proportion (42%) felt it was unreasonable that digital use is a luxury.

Enhancing Skills

The results of the survey highlight that (41%) believe the use of technology could make in-prison time productive. Yet, 43% of the sample could not see that use of technology would enhance learning opportunities. Moreover, 38% disagreed that digital literacy would assist with employability on release.

Cost and Implementation

Over half (52%) of the respondents agreed that people in prison should be charged to access and use a range of digital technologies while in prison. For those surveyed, 61% agreed that the taxpayer should not fund this kind of enterprise. However, 44% could see how technology might bring about efficiency savings and save them money. When asked, a few respondents envisaged the reduction of staffing in the advent of digitization of the prison. With this in mind, 53% expressed that prison services are not capable of introducing these services right now, and it will, according to 62%, create additional work. Just under half, 47%, believe that this should not be a priority.

Digital Divide & Penal Divide

Selwyn's (2003, 2004) analysis of the ‘digital divide’ is helpful in contextualizing the results of this survey. His typology of understanding digital opportunities usefully draws our attention to the nature and features of uneven access to ICT. Selwyn distinguishes the stages of the digital divide in terms of ‘formal/theoretical access’ and ‘effective’ access but also ‘engagement’ and ‘outcomes and consequences’ (2004, p. 352). This framework is, therefore, not just a matter of access. It reflects ‘the extent to which technology use enables individuals to participate and be part of society’ (Selwyn, 2004, p. 351). The process of imprisonment deliberately denies and regulates incarcerees’ communicative opportunities, social interactions (including face-to-face interaction), and ability to make autonomous choices with respect to communication. As Knight (2016) suggests, prisons are communication-poor environments where access and engagement are strictly limited. In the case of the prison, the ‘divide’ is two-fold, exacerbated by the state's intervention in limiting communicative opportunities. Reisdorf and Rikard (2018) have adapted Helsper’s (2012) basic model of corresponding fields to develop a ‘digital rehabilitation model.’ In this model, access and digital competency can help boost economic, social, personal, cultural, and health dimensions in returning citizens. Evidence which challenges what some of the public surveyed in this study fail to observe.

How the public perceives this outcome and such models of digital rehabilitation has proved noteworthy in our study. It is evident that public attitudes to digital opportunities and enrichment are complex. The survey results align with Selwyn’s (2004) stages of the digital divide. For our purposes, we have adapted Selwyn's typology to consider how people view the distribution of ICT in prisons, use and uptake and related skills.

First it is acknowledged that the distribution of ICT in the prison context should be without ‘cost’ to the taxpayer. Second, access should be ‘privileged’ and meet ‘security’ conditions. Third, the public perceives that use and uptake would benefit the running of the prison and help achieve ‘compliance and order’ as well as assist in meeting ‘reducing reoffending’ outcomes. Fourth, the acquisition of skills using digital technologies is also favourable, but the public, according to our UK survey, is less clear or even knowledgeable that these processes could contribute to wider rehabilitative outcomes and crime reduction, thus demonstrating a lack of knowledge.

Like other public opinion surveys on imprisonment (see Roberts & Hough, 2011), rehabilitation is valued and considered a priority, but are less clear about the direct association between digital literacy/competency and the potential for rehabilitation. Even though respondents do make an association between the need to rehabilitate and digital access, this is within limits. The majority of the public want assurances that those in prison cannot freely access the full interactive features of the online world. Features of security and cost are considered vital for the majority of the participants.

A Question of Framing

One way of understanding these types of responses is to reflect on the manner in which digitization is framed in popular and policy discourses and set out in public agendas. Epstein et al. (2011) highlight that the manner in which the digital divide is interpreted is based on how certain public agenda topics are ‘framed’. What they suggest is the ‘characterization of a public problem can often set the terms for how it will be perceived by policymakers, the press, and the public …’ (Epstein et al., 2011, p. 94). On closer analysis of the digital divide, they identified that dominant discourses were framed around the notion that there is a ‘problem of access’ (Epstein et al., 2011, p. 94). They found, then, that responses to this were typically rooted in technological determinism, and that ICT access was considered essential for economic growth and social prosperity. Their own study highlighted that responsibility for eliminating the digital divide was perceived to be down to the individual citizen to achieve access and develop their own skills. They found that access was considered a luxury and, therefore, not essential for the state to intervene. This is pertinent this survey's findings regarding inmates’ gaining access and acquiring digital skills in prison. The ways in which the use and purpose of prison are communicated to the public certainly corroborate with the less eligibility agenda – that people in prison do not deserve access to ICTs. Their loss and restriction of communicative opportunities purports to a discourse of deprivation. Jewkes (2012, p. 451) suggests that these discourses recycled in popular culture ‘lead to indifference’. In turn, Jewkes argues that populism and punitiveness can frame people in prison as ‘living it up in prison holiday camps at the taxpayer's expense’ (Jewkes, 2012, p. 455).

Our survey, then, highlights an important opportunity for prison policy makers and reformers. Although some of these sentiments and fears are reflected in the findings, this sample does not wholly uphold punitive views. The framing of some of our questions challenged those who responded to look beyond the deprivation model of imprisonment and consider the rehabilitative function in terms of skills and desistance. In addition, participants also hold their own views of digital technology more generally, and as Kvasny and Truex (2001, p. 409) suggest, quite often technology is defined as ‘polar opposites … growth/stagnation, new economy/old economy and progress/retreat’. One indicator may follow these principles of polarization in which our respondents were either techno-optimists, techno-skeptics, or, indifferent.

Shifting Attitudes: The Undecided

Polarization of opinion was evident in our survey across many of the items. However, a smaller percentage of individuals (approximately 25%) remained undecided and indifferent. This is denoted by the neither agree nor disagree category on the scale. This was identified in, for example, item 3 – I feel that use of technology could reduce the potential for violence in prison and also item 27 – I think digital technologies will help save the taxpayer money. This could be explained by the fact that those in the survey lacked knowledge upon which to base a clear opinion. The framing of the statements can suggest that those who answer do not know enough about the causal links between meaningful use of technology upon either prisoner behaviour or efficiency savings resulting from digitization for those proposed by Reisdorf and Rikard (2018), for example. There is current evidence to support both these statements that digital technology can reduce violence and save money (McDougall et al., 2017). Naturally, this evidence has not been adopted or translated into popular discourses readily available to the general public. Many respondents expressed a fear that technology could create even more opportunities for incarcerees to engage in additional criminal activities. However, this is in the absence of clearer information about what prison security protocols, measures, and solutions are available to prevent this from happening. Digital solutions that are currently available for our prisons are secure, and it is not possible for users to undertake deviant and illegal online activities (Knight & Van De Steene, 2017). However, this information is not widely understood by the general public. In England and Wales, research found that the supply and use of illicit mobile phones in prisons was complex, and the demand was not just down to criminal activity (Ellison et al., 2018). The research found that regular and cost-effective access to telephones in order to maintain family and friendship contact was significant. Consensus between inmates and prison staff was divided. However, research in the USA by Mufarreh et al. (2021) illustrates that staff that also have access to technology are also keen for inmates to have access to it.