IPTV behind bars

The entertainment needs of individuals in correctional facilities is often overlooked as a key part of their rehabilitation. The advent of IPTV and digital services is now creating new pathways to rehabilitation, education and monitoring for both inmates and institutions.

Commonly, televisions are permitted in inmates' cells for personal use offering an invaluable entertainment resource that can cut through the issues of boredom, isolation and depression, yet this has provided limited avenues of control for prison administrators. For example, in New Zealand the issue of televisions being used asstorage unit for physical contraband, has been circumvented by the implementation of flat screen TV’s and digital content services.

Last year the advent of digital TV in New Zealand allowed the correctional facilities body to work with new content models and introduced customised television content, in the form of two specially programmed "Corrections Channels". The new channels include educational and rehabilitative content.

The trend is being replicated globally and across the Tasman. In Australia, Victoria’s Malmsbury Youth Justice centre has deployed Omniscreen’s closed IPTV  system which provides device security, remote management and automatic content censorship. It also allows automatic access control based on the content classification information provided by broadcasters, i.e. G, PG, M, MA15+, etc.

“The use of IPTV in correctional institutions is proving to provide benefits to both the facility and the those that are housed there in terms of providing an efficient means of broadcasting direct communication, information and vetted entertainment which can be educational and provide enhanced rehabilitation,” said Eugene Razbash, CEO of CombiTel Group, the creator of the Omniscreen solution.

IPTV is not the only digital solution that is being introduced behind bars, in the US correctional facilities are starting to allow inmates to use tablets will help reintegrate them into society and keep them from returning to jail.

Now in several states, inmates can purchase tablets that allow them to connect with relatives and friends.  The challenge is finding a way to allow inmates to use these new communications tools while protecting public safety at the same time.  Razbash says that using a managed IPTV system, which allows monitoring and tracking of all interactivity is a key solution to these hurdles and in the long run will assist in integrating prisoners back into society while reducing negative perception of entertainment in prisons among general public.