The South Carolina Department of Corrections is running a multi-million dollar deficit, but it was able to buy 1,200 converter boxes and some new antennas to make the conversion to digital televisions. The switch cost $80,000.
Josh Gelinas, spokesman for the agency, says, "The taxpayers of this state did not pay for the transition here. Inmates themselves did. So this is money that they raised. And so I think taxpayers can rest assured that their money did not go to pay for this conversion."
Prison inmates have canteen accounts, made up of money the inmates had before they came to prison, they earn while there or that's given to them by family. Each prison has an Inmate Representative Council. One of its functions is to raise money for things that will benefit the entire inmate population, like sports equipment or a microwave oven for an inmate common area. In this case, the councils agreed to use inmate money to pay for $60,000 of the conversion. The remaining $20,000 was a grant from the state Department of Education for the prison system's school district.
Gelinas says that part of the grant was used to convert televisions in prison classrooms.
The state's purchasing contract meant the converter boxes cost about $30 each instead of the $50 they cost at stores. The rest of the money went to buy some new antennas and cable to connect the antennas to the TVs.
Gelinas says having access to television helps with security.
"There is not a TV in each cell and there is no cable television in this prison system. I'd like to make that really clear to the citizens of the state. And we go to great lengths to make sure the 25,000 inmates in this system, about 25,000 inmates, stay busy every day, whether it's working, whether it's education, academic or vocational, or other constructive use of their time. But in any case, they're going to have free time each day to watch television. And we'd rather them watching television to occupy their time than maybe some alternatives," he says.
But why TV instead of forcing inmates to read or further their education? Gelinas says, "We do encourage them to read books. All of our institutions have libraries. They have access to books and a great many of our inmates do read. However, some of them can't read, and so they too need to know about society and current events and what's going on in the world and TV is their outlet to that."
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