The Florida Department of Corrections is spending more than $90,000 to make sure inmates can watch TV once transmissions become all digital in February.
“This isn’t about the inmates,” said DOC spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger. “Inmates who are idle are just more dangerous.” Corrections officials call it a necessary inmate management tool. Inmates are rewarded with TV time for good behavior and if the sets aren’t ready for the conversion, they will go black, leaving little to offer to keep inmates under control, according to officials … Corrections Department officials also defend the program by saying they are only spending roughly $1 per inmate for converter boxes.
vericatrajkova Florida, Inmate TV
The British government is planning a radio station exclusively for the entertainment of Britain’s prisoners, which will cost taxpayers £2million, according to reports.
The service would broadcast shows 12 hours a day to 140 prisons in England and Wales if the Ministry of Justice approves the idea. The Prison Service, which came up with the scheme, claims the £2million need to start up the station would be raised from existing budgets … A Prison Service official told the paper that the station would carry “messages and educational programmes” …
However, Edward Garnier, the Shadow Justice Minister, condemned the plans claiming that the expense would be a “cock-eyed” waste. Mr Garnier told The Sun: “This government has presided over the worst prison overcrowding in the history of the Prison Service. Now it tries to pretend that pumping radio programmes into cells makes everything all right. It would be comic if it were not so tragic.”
vericatrajkova England & Wales, Europe, Inmate TV