Kelli ArseneauAppleton Post-Crescent
Wisconsin's prison system is swapping out its tablet vendor in favor of new online devices that allow prisoners to make phone calls, a key feature designed to boost their ability to stay in contact with family.
The agency made the change to increase communication, which is beneficial for prisoners' rehabilitation, mental health and success after release, said Beth Hardtke, DOC spokesperson.
The total cost of the tablets is $5 million. Typically, that cost is paid for by the tablet provider, but the state agency is covering half of it — $2.5 million — to avoid raising associated costs on calls for prisoners, Hardtke said.
The plan is for the DOC to eventually be reimbursed through commissions received from the tablet company, she added.
In addition, the department also is spending about $616,000 to upgrade Wi-Fi infrastructure in some of the facilities, Hardtke said.
Still, some prisoners and their loved ones have expressed frustrations about the change, saying they are losing money on the old technology and racking up more costs associated with the new tablets.
Here is what we know about the technology and how it's used in prisons statewide.
When did DOC first offer tablets inside prisons?
In 2018, the agency made tablets available to prisoners for $137, with additional fees for different features.
The new tablets will be available to all prisoners, regardless of their ability to pay. Some features are available for an added subscription fee.
The new tablets are from ICSolutions, a Texas-based company that provides technology services to corrections facilities around the United States. The old tablets were from Advanced Technologies Group, a company run by ICSolutions' same parent company, Keefe Group.
How are the tablets changing phone calls?
The biggest change coming with the tablet switch is prisoners' ability to make phone calls directly from the tablets.
Without the new tablets, prisoners needed to use a phone in a dayroom or wait for a phone to be passed into their cell, depending on the facility's security level.
After the new tablets were distributed at the prison in Green Bay, the DOC saw a 200% increase in the number of minutes spent on the phone, Hardtke said. From Feb. 6 to 19, Green Bay prisoners spent a total of 265,648 minutes on the phone. Then, from March 6 to 19, after the new tablets were distributed, prisoners spent 795,168 minutes total on the phone
The price of phone calls remains the same — 6 cents per minute for both in-state and out-of-state calls — and is still capped at 20 minutes.
In Wisconsin's prisons, prisoners have to make calls themselves — no one can call a prisoner directly. When a prisoner calls someone, that person has to accept the call to get in contact. The calling fee is charged to the prisoner, unless the person answering the call has set up an account with ICSolutions to accept collect calls.
In many cases, people convicted of crimes are not allowed to contact victims or other people connected to the crime.
Can prisoners still send messages on the tablets?
The switch also changed the messaging system.
Prisoners can send emails through the service GettingOut, which has a limit of 2,000 characters per message.
Previously, all prisons in Wisconsin used CorrLinks — which, under the DOC's contract, allowed for messages containing up to 13,000 characters.
Despite the shorter message lengths, the price remains the same — 15 cents. However, prisoners get three free messages each week, Hardtke said.
What other information is on the tablets?
The new tablets provide access to legal resources, educational resources, religious texts and information on the DOC's facilities and the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
The devices also have different applications for games, music and movies at various costs.
Are there restrictions on when prisoners can use the tablets?
The tablets are available 24 hours a day with some exceptions. Hardtke said phone calls are unable to be made overnight and during count times — when prisoners must be in their cells and guards ensure they are all accounted for.
Currently, tablets are not allowed in restrictive housing units, where prisoners typically are sent for disciplinary reasons, but the DOC is considering new rules to allow limited use of the tablets there.
What is the cost to prisoners and their families?
As prisons transition to the new tablet system, the old tablets become defunct. None of the content on them can be transferred to the new devices, Hardtke said.
The means some prisoners, like Devin Brown, are out the money they previously paid.
Brown, who is incarcerated at Oshkosh Correctional Institution, estimated he has spent more than $1,000 on his tablet since 2018. Most of that was spent on music — 525 songs purchased at $1.95 each.
The new tablets offer three paid levels of accessibility, ranging from $10 for 500 minutes to a premium plan that charges 4 cents per minute.
The maximum wage a prisoner can make when employed in a prison with a standard job is $1 an hour. Those who have jobs through the DOC's Bureau of Correctional Enterprises can make slightly more, up to $1.65 an hour.
The DOC can withhold a portion of those wages, plus any money sent to a prisoner by family and friends, for things like court fees, restitution and child support.
Prisoners are allowed to keep their old tablets — the prison can store them for safekeeping until a prisoner is released, or they are permitted to mail them to family or friends outside the prison.
However, a $30 fee is required for a person to send a tablet back to Advanced Technologies Group to get the prison's security restrictions removed.
Have there been problems with the tablet rollout?
Multiple people with incarcerated relatives have said messages have gotten lost on the new tablets and they have not received answers from ICSolutions' customer service, according to David Liners, the state coordinator of WISDOM, a statewide social justice nonprofit.
Prisoners also were not officially informed that the DOC would not reimburse them for any money spent on the old tablets until mid-May, two months after the first prisons made the tablet switch.
Still, multiple prisoners, including Brown, said the new tablets have technological improvements including better image clarity.
What concerns do prison reform advocates have?
Although the DOC touts the change as beneficial, advocates remain skeptical.
Rita Phelan, a member of WISDOM, said she wonders if the new tablets may be a way for prison staff to keep people confined in their cells even more often — particularly among severely understaffed prisons, like Waupun Correctional Institution, where her son is incarcerated.
Waupun has remained on what the DOC calls "modified movement," and has not allowed in-person visitors for over a year. The DOC has said the restricted movement is a result of staffing shortages. The Waupun prison faces the greatest staffing shortage of all Wisconsin's prisons, with more than 51% of positions vacant as of April 20.
Phelan also questioned if the free tablets will become a new way of discipline, since they are property of the Department of Corrections and can be taken away.
More: Jails around Wisconsin forgo in-person visits for video calls. How is this affecting those incarcerated?
Who already has the new tablets?
So far, the systems have been installed at Green Bay Correctional Institution, Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center, Waupun Correctional Institution, Oshkosh Correctional Institution, the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility and Prairie du Chien Correctional Institution.
The gradual distribution is necessary because bringing tablets to each institution requires "a Wi-Fi buildout," according to the DOC.
Have other state prison systems encountered similar changes?
While it's not extremely common for prisons to change technology vendors, there have been similar instances of changes that sparked concern among prisoners in other states, said Wanda Bertram, a communication strategist at thePrison Policy Initiative, a national nonprofit criminal justice think tank.
In 2020, prisoners in Florida won a settlement in a class action lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections for money lost when Florida prisons switched from offering MP3 players with purchased music to tablets.
With the switch to the tablets, prisoners lost access to all songs they had previously purchased, with no reimbursem*nt offered, according to the Florida Justice Institute.
The settlement required the Florida Department of Corrections to give about 3.9 million digital media credits for use on the tablets to approximately 11,000 people who were part of the lawsuit, according to the Florida Justice Institute.
"It's clear to me, and I think it should be clear to anyone, that the music that people have purchased on their tablets are incarcerated people's property. And same goes for games, movies, etcetera." Bertram said.
There are no federal regulations for pricing on tablets, Bertram said. The Federal Communications Commission only recently gained the ability to regulate the price of phone and video calls made in-state between prisoners and their loved ones in 2023; prior to that its scope of authority only included phone calls from a prison to another state or outside the country.
However, Bertram said, state legislatures have the ability pass laws that could rein in high prices on tablet resources.
Contact Kelli Arseneau at 920-213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @ArseneauKelli.
