By Erin Hicks
Corrections1 Associate Editor
A new personal electronic is making its way into jails, and you may be surprised to hear that this one wasn’t smuggled in a Pringles can or shower slipper.
The new electronic is a personal MP3 player by Miami-based company JPay which offers music and entertainment/media to inmates.
The player has 8 gigs built into it and can store about 8,000 songs, according to Greg Levine, Chief Operating Officer for JPay.
The player comes with ear buds and three built-in games (including Sudoku), an FM radio and an antenna. It retails for $39.99 and can be purchased by the inmate or by inmates’ friends and family members through JPay’s website.
But the JP3 device does more than just play music. It can be used to download saved email messages and photo attachments from the inmate kiosks, so inmates can read and review them in their cells.
So you might think, why should inmates be able to listen to music and play games? This isn’t a vacation — it’s prison after all. But according to Levine, personal MP3 players can actually make a facility safer and more efficient. Levine said he’s been told by corrections officials that these little players have made a big difference in improving behavior within their facility.
“I spoke with the VP of security for the Washington State DOC and she told me since putting the JP3 program in a facility they’ve had less security problems and inmates are behaving better because they don’t want to lose the privilege,” Levine said.
Not only that, but Levine said that facilities have been able to cut back on the risk of contraband coming in to the prison since the device creates a uniform media platform and reduces the demand for illegal music players.
In addition, Levine said studies show that music can calm people down, especially if it’s music they want to listen to. He said he’s heard anecdotal reports of inmates behaving more calmly once a facility signs up with the JP3 program.
“Music can have a significant influence on behavior in a corrections environment,” Levine said. “It doesn’t have to be elevator music either; an inmate listing to his or her favorite pop song is having a normalizing, calming experience.”
Perhaps one of the most striking aspects of the JP3 program is that JPay offers it free of charge to DOCs and other agencies. The company pays for all the consumables and infrastructure, which includes kiosks where the computer is stored that allows inmates to download music, audio books, and messages. It also requires internet networks be installed, printers, cabling, broad band connections etc.
As is the case with everything that enters a prison, the players are contraband proof and have many built-in security features. They are completely see through, and if the electronics inside are tampered with the electronics will break, rendering the whole device useless. To cut back on theft, the player is registered for the inmates and, when plugged into the kiosk, if the wrong inmate tries to plug in a player that isn’t his/hers it won’t work.
Not only that, but the system comes with a complete intelligence network so officials can see exactly what’s being downloaded on the players. “Everything is track able. Our system will detect if someone on the outside is buying 50 players for various inmates and alert investigators. We can also analyze whether one particular song is being bought over and over, potentially being used as code,” Levine said.
He said the system has a “word watch list” that can be personalized in each facility. Correctional management can plug in a list of words to watch, and if any of them come up on any inmate’s player, the facility will be automatically notified. All photos are automatically flagged and need to approved by an official before reaching an inmate’s player.
“Our detailed reporting and tracking and our sophisticated relationship analysis and connection mapping tools are highly valued by our client agencies,” Levine said. “In this respect, the JP3 program provides extra data points for investigators, and adds more depth to intelligence profiles.”
JPay has been in the corrections business since 2002 and helps friends and family of inmates stay connected to their incarcerated loved ones through a variety of corrections-related services offered in more than 30 states across the country.”