Digital Exclusion and the Cost of Living Call for Evidence The Digital Poverty of our Prisons
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The Digital Poverty of our Prisons At any one time approximately 90,000 people are in prisons across the UK. This equates to 176 people out of 100,00. It is forecasted that the population is set to rise to approximately 99,000 by 2026. Each prisoner costs £48,000 per year from the public purse. Moreover current reoffending rates and returns to prison custody are estimated to be 25%. . It is also suggested that sentences are getting longer. Prisoners experience a restricted and regulated period of time and have limited access to the goods and services commonly found in the outside world. The longer and more frequent the periods in prison, the more the impact of deprivation is exacerbated. Prisoners are incentivised, following good behaviour, to gain access to many goods and services. In addition, people in prison have to pay for things like telephone calls, using a restricted email system and TV. That said our prisons are ‘communication poor’ environments (Knight 2016)- whereby opportunities to interact are limited and it therefore no surprise that digital inequality is readily experienced in prison. This does not exclude staff either. They too experience digital exclusion and deprivation.