Technology Enriches Lives While Incarcerated

Providing incarcerated individuals with technology during their time in correctional facilities gives them more than a communication tool. Technology is a scale multiplier, linking incarcerated individuals with friends and families and resources, from education and job skills to mental health and wellness tools, creating better reentry outcomes. It also provides correctional facilities with the infrastructure and safety to ensure communications are safe and contribute to operational efficiency, making locations safer.

Yet, today, corrections facilities are digital deserts. They lack access to funding and resources available to the outside world, which can limit communication and how incarcerated individuals are able to use the time they have inside to prepare to return to communities, contributing to our country’s 70 percent recidivism rate.

This raises an important question for corrections leaders: How do we integrate modern technology within facilities in a secure and controlled way, keeping pace with consumer technology?
Aventiv Technologies provides a platform to empower rehabilitative justice with affordable and accessible modern technology. As the market leader in corrections communications for over three decades, the focus is offering high quality, affordable, secure technology, to improve public safety and provide the digital infrastructure that connects incarcerated individuals with their friends and family and resources to prepare for successful re-entry.

Aventiv’s Chief Information Officer Melanie Sankaran shares, “Delivering technology in correctional facilities requires a secure and tailored approach to meet customers’ and consumers’ unique needs. We understand the pressure correctional facilities are under to improve facility safety and operational efficiency – ensuring a calm environment, despite staffing and funding shortages.”

Aventiv has deployed more than 650,000 secure tablets to incarcerated individuals across the country, extending beyond basic communication like messaging, phone calls, and video chats, to offer educational and entertainment materials in a safe, direct, cost-effective manner.

To ensure the safety of staff, fellow incarcerated individuals and other stakeholders, the tablets have rigorous security controls in place to help ensure that incarcerated individuals can only access pre-approved content. Internet access is prohibited, so tablets only supply information in a regulated, agency-approved, and secure manner. Should a security concern arise, Aventiv’s technology is equipped to assist staff in identifying and addressing potential challenges, both within the facility and between the facility and the outside world.

Complementing the security aspect of their business, Aventiv’s Lantern offers a robust learning management system with a broad spectrum of educational opportunities. From GED preparation to university-accredited degree programs, the multi-lingual coursework helps prepare incarcerated individuals for a range of professional pathways. Collaboration with educational partners provides added flexibility for interactive learning experiences, including the ability to communicate with professors and reschedule classes at greater convenience.

Delivering technology in correctional facilities requires a secure and tailored approach to meet customers’ and consumers’ unique needs

As incarcerated individuals complete training and prepare to return to their communities, Aventiv then further eases the transition with resources to help secure employment. Forward-thinking organizations like Honest Jobs connect incarcerated individuals with a fair chance with employers. Honest Jobs is part of a unique Aventiv platform—Justice Sandbox, that recognizes the entrepreneurial spirt of justice-impacted individuals and gives them a developer sandbox to create applications for Aventiv’s tablets.

Innovations like these show the power of fresh thinking in bringing change. Aventiv Technologies stands as a prime example, demonstrating how thoughtfully applied, secure technology can not only transform the day-to-day experiences of incarcerated but also positively impact facilities and society at large by contributing meaningful reductions in recidivism.