DISQUS

Technology Liberation Front: Dead Air Walking: Prisoners Face Loss of TV After Digital Transition

  • Richard Bennett · 1 year ago
    Well, you know. Maybe the question is what the guests of the state would do if they didn't have TV to watch. Perhaps the list includes things like:

    1. Plan break outs
    2. Deal more drugs
    3. Lift weights
    4. Read the Bible, Koran, and L. Ron Hubbard's books
    5. Riot
    6. Rape each other
    7. Beat the crap out of the guards
    8. Attend Aryan Brotherhood meetings
    9. Illegally download stuff from the Internets
    10. Steal your identity

    TV is one of those things that help the guards maintain order. That's what they mean by "normalcy."
  • Berin Szoka · 1 year ago
    One would think that if television were truly essential to control of the prison population, prisons might invest in the DTV converters, which start at about $50/each (not counting the coupon):
  • Seth Finkelstein · 1 year ago
    @Berin - the article above shows the reason why. Mean-spirited right-wingers will play politics with it, demagoging and sneering about e.g. how they "sit in stunned silence for a moment". Unless you believe that the optimum way to manage a prison matches exactly with reactionary rantings containing barely disguised sadism, well, there's a problem.
  • Jonathan Richards · 11 months ago
    As a former federal prison inmate, I can say without hesitation that TV is essential to keeping the peace in prison. It provides something for inmates to look forward to and of course occupies endless hours of time that would otherwise be spent in less docile ways. Congress needs to expand the subsidy to cover prisons now!
  • Toronto Web Design · 8 months ago
    Unless you believe that the optimum way to manage a prison matches exactly with reactionary rantings containing barely disguised sadism, well, there's a problem.