By JEANETTE WOLFBERG
HUDSON–Columbia County Jail offers everybody incarcerated there for more than a few days a tablet for online activities, Captain Patrick Delaney, the jail administrator, reported in a conversation May 22. Policy forbids incarcerated individuals from keeping cellphones, laptops, or personal computers. But these tablets are designed specifically “for a correctional setting,” and people can use them for online programs and communication.
The tablets come from Viapath Technologies, which — its website says — “aims to reduce recidivism” through “technology and services for incarcerated individuals, their support network, correctional agencies, and returning citizens.” Everything on the tablets is pre-screened and pre-approved.
Individuals incarcerated in Columbia County Jail do not keep the tablets 24/7. The staff hands out the tablets at about 9 a.m. and collects them at about 10:30 p.m.
The Viapath tablets offer a variety of programs and functions, some of them free. There is no internet access, Captain Delaney said, but the available programs include education courses. Participation in any program is voluntary, Captain Delaney added.
Incarcerated individuals also use the tablets to communicate by video screen with family and significant others. The jail also has an old fashioned phone bank, the Sheriff’s Office reported. Communication in any form with people who have certain restraining orders against the individual is blocked.
Using the tablet “is a privilege, not a right,” added Captain Delaney. Though users always keep access to a law library, a central database can block a certain individual’s access to specific sites. The central database also enables looking at what somebody did with the tablet, should the need arise.
The jail is “coming up to its first year” of tablet distribution, Captain Delaney said. Columbia is one of the last counties in the state to adopt it. Some other counties have been doing it for years.