N.J. County Providing Laptops to Inmates for Legal Research

By Jeralyn, Section Inmates and Prisons
Posted on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 10:43:46 PM EST
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This is progress. I hope it catches on.

The [Bergen County] Sheriff's Department is not giving inmates fully loaded iMacs along with their jumpsuits as they come through the locking doors. They won't be working on their profiles on MySpace or bidding for rock hammers on eBay.

Rather, the department is offering stripped-down, durable mini-PCs, essentially limited to legal research, that inmates can have delivered to their cells for allotted periods. The department purchased the 80 laptops using $100,000 of its income from inmates' commissary purchases.

In other words, these computers have no internet access. The policy should be extended to federal inmates in pre-trial detention, many of whose cases are complex, involving discovery so voluminious it's only available on dvd or cd-rom.

It's important to remember that pre-trial detainees, who are often housed in county jails due to lack of available space in federal detention centers, or because there is no federal detention center in their neck of the woods, have not been convicted of any crime. They are simply being warehoused awaiting trial.

More...

As the article states:

....let's not forget that the overwhelming majority of these men and women will rejoin society at some point. In light of that, computer-assisted research is among the better possible uses of their time in jail.

If this initiative works as presented, it might make the jail both safer and more humane. Now it almost sounds too good to be true.

[hat tip Prison Legal News.]

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N.J. County Providing Laptops to Inmates for Legal Research | 8 comments (8 topical)

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Treat prisoners as people (1.00 / 1) (#4)
by koshembos on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 06:17:21 AM EST

That's is a nice start. Why not let convicts have access to computers ad the Internet. Emails can be easily monitored in both directions, sites may be easily blocked, etc.

When you treat prisoners as animals in Michael Vick's dog farm, you become a very a violent society and start invading other countries for political reason; death, murder and executions makes you scarifies American as if their life is very cheap.

absent internet access (none / 0) (#1)
by cpinva on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 11:38:39 PM EST

how much research are they going to be able to accomplish? will they be getting updated cd's, from westlaw/lexis?

perhaps they will be, given the dollars involved (quite expensive little buggers, over a grand a piece), assuming the funds aren't all being spent on the mini-pc's. difficult to know, since the story's author failed to inform of us that, or even address the issue of actual research materials for these machines.

Westlaw (1.00 / 1) (#3)
by roy on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 11:56:04 PM EST

According to a more detailed story here, the laptops connect to the same network as the library computers, which gives them access to the Westlaw database. I was under the impression that Westlaw is accessed by the internet, maybe not, or maybe somebody got a little confused about the technicalities.

$1,200 a pop is quite a bit, but they're paying extra for "rugged" machines. I don't know if they'll survive being flushed in the toilet, but a little extra durability seems like a good investment.

[ Parent ]

: thanks for the better link (none / 0) (#6)
by Deconstructionist on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 08:21:58 AM EST

It seems the jail simply has a Westlaw account as would a law firm and the computers have internet access restricted to that. Westlaw is not that expensive these days and there may be a "government rate" that is cheaper than for private users, as is the case with hotels, airlines etc.

[ Parent ]

They did say (none / 0) (#2)
by Jeralyn on Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 11:46:23 PM EST

the funds for purchasing the computers were taken from the inmates' commissary accounts. And yes, Lexis probably donates the disks. If they don't, lawyers probably do, since most of us have tons of them we no longer use, having switched to the online version.

[ Parent ]

: I think lawyers (none / 0) (#5)
by Deconstructionist on Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 08:14:22 AM EST

would be unlikely to give away the discs (without permission from publishers, anyway) they received as that would raise copyright infringement problems.
I also think that the purchses were made with the profits from sales to inmates and not by taking money from inmate accounts.
In any event, it's a good idea. Insofar as state law goes, they could probably just download the case law and code and rules, etc. from the State's public website as that data is not copyright protected as are WEST, Lexis and other private published materials which include more than simply the published cases, statutes, rules etc and include both propietary software and annotations, etc.

[ Parent ]

ok, i just read (none / 0) (#7)
by cpinva on Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 06:38:29 PM EST

the story linked to by roy. right in the headline, it makes reference to the internet. as well, they cite the "wireless" connection the laptops will have. this is an internet connection, regardless of how restricted it's intended to be.

jeralyn, if you check your old disks, you'll find they're stamped with a "dead date", beyond which they aren't usable. my CCH disks have it as well. the inmates can use them for mini-frisbees, but not research.

i have no issue with this program, in light of who it's primarily intended to serve (inmates awaiting trial), but i guarantee, the first time one hacks through to the outside, all hell will break loose. and i guarantee it will happen.

A jail in the same county as a Federal Courthouse (none / 0) (#8)
by JSN on Sat Aug 25, 2007 at 08:51:53 PM EST

often houses federal pretrial prisoners. In that case they may
have to provide the prisoners with a law library. When I visited such a jail they showed me the law library and it took up a lot of space they needed for other purposes.

The jail administration may not be as enlightened as you think the laptops may be a much better solution to the law library problem from their point of view.