What Are the Benefits of CDCR's CTS?

CDCR's CTS has a variety of benefits for the department, incarcerated individuals, and society at large. The benefits of the CTS include, but are not limited to:

Reduced Access Points for the Introduction of Contraband

Postal mail, in-person visits, and books and magazines are all vectors for the introduction of contraband into prisons. To the extent that CTS-based content and services reduce incarcerated individuals' reliance on physical mail, publications, and visits, they necessarily reduce the potential for the introduction of contraband.

Moreover, electronic and digital devices such as MP3 players, CD players, and typewriters have parts that can be modified into contraband such as weapons and tattoo guns. To the extent that CTS-based content and apps reduce incarcerated individuals' reliance on less secure devices, they necessarily reduce the potential for the introduction of contraband.

Increased Access to Education and Rehabilitation Services

Empirical evidence shows that education and cognitive behavioral rehabilitation are effective in decreasing the likelihood that incarcerated individuals will commit new crimes upon release and increasing the likelihood that incarcerated individuals will be productive citizens upon release.

CTS-based education and rehabilitation content and services have the potential to increase the availability of non formal and informal self guided education and rehabilitation opportunities, expand the availability and increase the effectiveness of existing formal education and rehabilitation services, and offer new formal education and rehabilitation services greater numbers more efficiently.

Reduced Violence and Rule Breaking

Prisons and jails can be mind-numbingly boring. Incarcerated individuals are adept at keeping themselves entertained in these entertainment deserts and the activities they choose to pass the time are sometimes violent or otherwise violate the rules of the institutions in which they live.

CTS-based content and services have the potential both to divert incarcerated individuals' attention from less fruitful endeavors and to provide an incentive for good behavior. Anecdotal evidence has demonstrated that inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff violence and general rule-breaking behavior are reduced when CTS-like services are introduced in custodial settings.

Improved Social and Familial Relationships

Empirical evidence has shown that incarcerated individuals who maintain healthy communications with their friends and family while incarcerated are less likely to commit new crimes upon release and less likely to exhibit rule-breaking behavior while incarcerated. The more an incarcerated individual communicates with friends and family, the more these benefits are realized.

CTS-based communications services such as voice calls, video calls, texting, and sharing ecards, photos and video clips have the potential to increase the quantity and quality of incarcerated individuals' communications with their friends and family and therefore have the potential to reduce recidivism and increase the likelihood of success upon release.

Reduced Cost of Delivering Services

Statutes, regulations, policies and procedures require custodial agencies to provide incarcerated individuals with a variety of services including healthcare, banking, commissary, education, counseling, legal, library, and information services. Many of these services require the dissemination of information to incarcerated individuals and/or communication between incarcerated individuals and various staff.

CTS-based services have the potential to increase the efficiency of delivering these services while decreasing the fiscal and administrative cost by automating processes, streamlining communications, and reducing the need to produce and send paper copies of documents.

Increased Digital Literacy

Digital literacy is required in order to be successful in nearly every sphere of modern life. Incarcerated individuals as a population suffer from low rates of digital literacy, which decreases their likelihood of success upon release. Formal, in-person digital literacy classes are costly and have limited reach.

CTS-based services, content, and apps have the potential to increase digital literacy among incarcerated individuals both by delivering digital literacy content and services for independent study and by providing a platform upon which incarcerated individuals can practice digital skills.