{"id":9090,"date":"2024-04-21T20:00:22","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T17:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ch.jfdi.cc\/?p=9090"},"modified":"2024-04-21T20:00:22","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T17:00:22","slug":"many-prisoners-go-years-without-touching-a-smartphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ch.jfdi.cc\/?p=9090","title":{"rendered":"Many prisoners go years without touching a smartphone"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

It means they struggle to navigate life on the outside<\/h4>\n

By Ye In (Jane) Hwang<\/p>\n

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You\u2019d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn\u2019t require some form of digital literacy. We need only to look back ten years to realise how quickly things have changed.
\nIn 2013, we were still predominantly buying paper bus tickets and using Facebook on a desktop computer. Now, we order food by scanning codes and tap our cards to make payments.
\nDigital inclusion (someone\u2019s ability to keep up with technology) is an important health and social equity issue, amplified by the rapid digital developments that arose during the Covid pandemic.
\nAmong those who are prone to digital exclusion, there is one group who, due to a collision of several trends, may be hit the hardest: people leaving prison and re-entering society at an older age, or after lengthy periods of imprisonment. In a new study, we interviewed former prisoners about their experiences with trying to adapt to ubiquitous technology after years of going without.
\nPrison populations are getting older worldwide for a few reasons, including general population ageing, trends towards people entering prison at an older age, or staying in for longer. At the same time, Australian prisons remain highly technologically restricted environments, mostly for security reasons.
\nWe interviewed 15 Australians (aged 47\u201369 years) about their experiences of reintegration following release from prison.
\nThe (primarily male) interviewees recalled a tense and troublesome time. They described feeling like a stranger thrown into a world where survival depended on their ability to use technology.
\nRegardless of their experiences before imprisonment, the rapid digitisation of daily functions that were once familiar to them rendered their skills and confidence irrelevant.
\nOne former inmate said: \u201cThere\u2019s a significant gap [\u2026] for anybody who\u2019s done, I\u2019m gonna say, probably more than five to seven years [in prison]. Because things change so quickly [\u2026] they do not know what the world looks like.\u201d
\nThis deeply affected their sense of self and self-efficacy, and heightened the stigma they experienced, adding a weighty psychological and emotional burden to an already stressful time.
\n\u201cYou want to fit in, you want to be invisible, to either fit in and be part of the crowd or just invisible. Because for a lot of people leaving prison, they\u2019re still wearing their crime or their offending on their shoulders. And anything that sort of has their head pop up outside of the norm really triggers people\u2019s anxiety,\u201d they said.
\n\u201cThere will be people where those trip-ups of technology are a really big deal and really impact your anxiety, really impacts your need to socialise and interact with other people.\u201d
\nPost-prison reintegration is already a challenge. There\u2019s concerning evidence around recidivism, risk of post-release mortality, social isolation, unemployment and homelessness.
\nDigital exclusion creates an additional barrier for those who are older, who already face a high risk of medical and social marginalisation.
\nA former prisoner said: \u201cThink about it, after being in ten years, well you think, okay, where do I start? And everything is hard. And sometimes this is why people fall back into their same situations because it\u2019s just too hard.\u201d
\nTechnology isn\u2019t completely absent from prisons, but interviewees described the programmes and technology as outdated, basic or limited in relevance to their immediate daily, post-release lives.
\nRecent attempts to bring in touchscreen devices to Australian prisons suggest positive change. However, our interviewees claimed there was a lack of education around these, adding to the risk of digital division even within the prison.
\nThere must be investment in specific digital literacy or technology readiness programmes tailored to the unique needs of this population both prior to, and following release.
\nThe interviewees provided suggestions for how such programmes could be delivered and a keenness to engage with them. They tended to focus on learning in environments free from stigma and judgement of their literacy level or histories, with hands-on experience and face to face support. Interviewees favoured learning while in prison, with additional support available on the outside.
\nThree interviewees said: \u201cIf they could somehow incorporate it into the prisons where you know, they actually showed them how to use them and how to download an app and how to use the basic apps such as, you know, Centrelink, MyGov, it\u2019d be a lot better life for them when they get out.\u201d
\n\u201cI think a lot of ex-prisoners shy away from doing these community type education stuff. Because they\u2019re paranoid, basically.\u201d
\n\u201cAs you\u2019d be aware, it\u2019s no good someone\u2019s sitting there telling you how it works, you need to experience it yourself.\u201d
\nAt a broader level, improving the digital inclusion of people in prison requires attitudinal change by government stakeholders and the community. Ultimately, it calls for a commitment to practices that put rehabilitation at the centre, whilst managing competing needs for security and segregation.
\nBased on the evidence, we can be certain this will encourage positive change for the 95 per cent of Australian prisoners who will eventually be released.<\/p>\n

Ye In (Jane) Hwang is a postdoctoral research associate at School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney. Reprinted from the conversation.org under a Creative commons licence<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prison populations are getting older worldwide for various reasons, including general population aging and trends towards people entering prison at an older age or staying in for longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[862,732,2320,3348,424,2460,1498,432,21,3,4985,7358,108,2030,405,1610,249,4382,250,3330,415,210,1295,7109,2753,7074,3331,5175,864,131,678,657,6706,7359,1354,6074,4054,433,827,1358,1230,943,1682,7360,31,6305,18],"class_list":["post-9090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-age","tag-apps","tag-bus","tag-change","tag-collision","tag-community","tag-confidence","tag-covid","tag-crime","tag-cyprus","tag-developments","tag-digital-inclusion","tag-digital-literacy","tag-digitisation","tag-education","tag-evidence","tag-facebook","tag-food","tag-google","tag-google-news","tag-government","tag-health","tag-inclusion","tag-inmate","tag-investment","tag-licence","tag-news","tag-pandemic","tag-population","tag-prison","tag-prisoner","tag-prisons","tag-rehabilitation","tag-reintegration","tag-release","tag-research","tag-risk","tag-school","tag-security","tag-support","tag-survival","tag-sydney","tag-technology","tag-technology-literacy","tag-unemployment","tag-who","tag-world"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\nMany 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