What Are the Benefits of Digital Equity

The Digital Equity Act notes that a broadband internet connection and digital literacy are increasingly critical to how individuals participate in the society, economy, and civic institutions of the United States and access health care and essential services, obtain education, and build careers. As a result, broadband access to digital information and the applications and skills to find, evaluate, organize, create, and communicate such information have the potential to improve health outcomes, educational attainment and achievement, employment stability, economic success, and social and civic participation.

Incarcerated individuals stand to benefit from these outcomes at least to the same degree as their non-incarcerated counterparts. Moreover, because educational attainment and achievement, employment stability, and economic success are positively correlated with reduced recidivism, it can be argued that incarcerated individuals (and the rest of society) stand to benefit more from digital inclusion and literacy than their non-incarcerated counterparts.