Article
Horacio Pérez Perdigó & José Suárez Tascón
“ Nothing is constant except change.”
This phrase is attributed to Heraclitus of Ephesus back in the 5th century BC, no one since then, and even less so today, dares to question it. The progress that made the pace of change go from being arithmetic to exponential, the advances in all disciplines and sectors of our society have been enormous, to the point that today it is maintained, for example, that no one knows which jobs will be most in demand. in the coming years. Change has come to stay, make an impact, become more important every day and be the most important attribute of progress.
The penitentiary institution has not been immune to this, in fact, the sentence based on the stay in a penitentiary establishment without physical punishment, respect for life and the condemned person, is also an invention of our modern society, even back in the day. In the 16th century, physical punishment, sentences to contributory labour and the imposition of compensatory fines were indeed more common than deprivation of liberty.
It is in the 16th century with the first “houses of correction” where the inauguration of the penitentiary system as a form of sentencing through deprivation of liberty is officially considered. Since then, this institution has also evolved a lot, at first the purpose of deprivation of liberty was that of confinement with the objective of inviting the inmate to reflect on his actions and help him with the purpose of amendment. But a more modern vision already in the 19th century and, if the reader asks me, more Christian, more oriented towards forgiveness, would argue that although confinement due to the deprivation of liberty should encourage the prisoner to reflect, the obligation of society It was to achieve not that of the condemned man but his social reintegration.
Nowadays, in Spain and it can be said that in all the countries around us, the primary purpose of custodial sentences is aimed at the social reintegration of the prisoner. Article 25.2 of the Constitution establishes:
“The custodial sentences and security measures will be oriented towards re-education and social reintegration… Those sentenced to prison will enjoy fundamental rights, with the exception of those expressly limited in the sentence…”
The Public Powers, and the Ministry of the Interior through the Penitentiary Institution, are linked by the mandate of article 25 of the Constitution and the General Organic Penitentiary Law.
Therefore, the Penitentiary Institution must use all the means at its disposal to ensure that the convicted person satisfactorily reintegrates into society and does not commit crimes again, avoiding returning to the establishment that helped him to reconvert. Because investing in social reintegration programmes with people who have violated the criminal law is part of the crime prevention strategy, facilitates the return of offenders to society, prevents recidivism, and contributes strongly to public safety.
Society has been immersed for more than thirty years, not in the industrial revolution but in the information society, which has recently been renamed with a new term: “digitalisation” meaning nothing other than acceleration. Nowadays with artificial intelligence, we are no longer able to anticipate what is to come.
The Penitentiary institution and the inmates it houses are part of that society and should not be left behind in this digitalisation process in which society is immersed, not only should it not be for reasons of efficiency, scarcity or budgetary limitation, but also which cannot, because the resocialisation of the prisoner today also means his digitalisation. There is no more!!!, there is no choice!!!, prisons have to adapt their actions to the dynamics of our days and push their digitalisation.
The Penitentiary Institution in Spain understands it this way. There are many aspects of prisoner digitalisation that can be addressed. In this article we are going to address several of them.
Digitalisation must allow the inmate to interact digitally with others, electronically. Until a few years ago, the only telematic tool available to the prisoner was the telephone to contact his family and friends or the necessary entities: lawyers, consulates, etc. At the same time, the Administration had traditional ISDN video conferencing systems to enable the inmate to speak to the court without leaving the prison.
Today we can say that Spain is a pioneer in the video calling service, a new tool through which inmates can hear and see their loved ones. This initiative represents a before and after, it is truly disruptive. Video calls are not just a new tool, they are a lever of change, a disruptive tool:
1. Because it brings the prisoner closer to his loved ones and undoubtedly encourages his social reintegration through closer contact with his network of family and friends;
2. But, it also allows said family members to exchange physical visits to the Centers for virtual ones; also meaning significant savings in costs and time for family members due to their own travel. All this without mentioning the monumental improvement it represents so that foreign prisoners can see their loved ones thousands of kilometres away, family members or friends who do not even have the opportunity to come see them from time to time;
3. It allows the Institution to greatly reduce the volume of visits, which is one of the most complex and delicate processes in penitentiary centres because it consumes a large amount of supervisory human resources, case by case, one by one, visitor by visitor.
Therefore, and as has been said, it is a triple win win win: the inmate wins, society wins and the institution wins by reducing the effort that their custody requires them to make.
Is this all we have to do to digitise inmate life? Obviously not. There are many actions that we can undertake to provide the necessary tools to facilitate the social reintegration of the inmate and at the same time manage the penitentiary institution more efficiently. One of them, for example, would be the digitalisation of the inmate’s relationship with the institution traditionally resolved through paper applications.
If inmates are provided with a computer touch screen that allows them to make all requests digitally through a small computer system equipped with a simple workflow, they will be able to reach the appropriate person instantly without intermediaries or delays, without transferring paper. within the centre, and adding the traceability necessary today to guarantee the always desirable level of adequate service.
For example, a very common request is the inmate’s query of his financial balance in custody by the institution (called peculio), which could be resolved instantly even without human intervention from any official by simply connecting the workflow with the back-end system. of the institution that guards said amounts. There are many more examples of how to lighten the bureaucratic burden of officials in the centres so that they can dedicate more and better to the reintegration of the inmate, and much less to the management of procedures.
No less important than these advances in the efficient management of the Institution is providing the inmate with all the necessary tools to achieve their reintegration, and for this the use of new methodologies is essential. Technology works as a means to access knowledge, to use alternative teaching materials that are more attractive and enriching and strengthen interdisciplinary knowledge, in addition to achieving or improving skills with new technologies that are essential in today’s world.
Thus, today there are solutions similar to that of a portable PC so that the inmate can interact digitally from his own cell with 90% of his needs, obviously with the corresponding security restrictions imposed by the prison regime.
We would be making it possible for the inmate, in addition to being able to make video calls from his own cell, in addition to processing requests from the cell, to also be able to study remotely, for example at the UNED, access other training platforms such as those of the Service Public Employment, or any other institution, that can surf the Internet to logically authorised addresses, that can watch pay TV channels, listen to streaming radio, podcasts, play video games, read the press…
All these technological advances must be carried out in the most scrupulous follow-up of the regulations and recommendations regarding information security and data privacy.
In summary, in penitentiary centres if today the inmates are not yet digital, tomorrow they will be, and this will be sooner rather than later.
Horacio Pérez Perdigo is currently the Country Manager for Telio in Spain, where he leads the digitalisation of products and processes and drives the transformation from voice to video telecom services. With over 28 years of experience, he has held leadership roles in telecom, technology, and business management. His education includes an MBA from IESE in Madrid, alongside intensive MBA programs at INSEAD in France and IESE in Barcelona. He also holds a degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the Technical University of Madrid (ETSIT).
José Suárez Tascón was the Managing Director of Prison Labor and Employment Training (TPFE), from March 2012 to October 2023. He holds a Law Degree from the Complutense University of Madrid and a Master’s in Public Leadership from the I.E.S. of Madrid. A member of the Senior Technical Corps of the II.PP, specialising in law, he has held various senior roles within the Penitentiary Administration and other government institutions, focusing on human resources, project coordination, and advisory positions in the Ministries of Economy and Interior.
