In actual operation, an average computer lab consisting of ten old personal computers (8088s) costing as little as $150. Each proved capable of processing 60 inmates per hour through a variety of validly tested, computer assisted rehabilitation programs which included such line ups as Alcohol Education, Drug Education, Parenting Education and Aids Education. Programmed material could be developed by social workers and easily programmed into the system for testing.
A survey of 120 inmate participants revealed that on average approximately 3 hours of inmate time was expended in preparation for a single ten-minute computer administered test. This same lab, requiring one hour of staff time to operate, demonstrated a potential rate of return of approximately 1/180 hours. In short, with valid testing, 180 hours of inmate time were expended in program study and test preparation in exchange for the one hour of staff time required to manage a lab operation. Inmates taking study booklets to their cells and intensely studying them were moving in great numbers toward understanding their problems and rehabilitating themselves. All they needed to be given was the opportunity.
Unlike conventional programs which often move at a fixed rate, the speed of a lecturer, group leader, or video, with self study booklet programs, inmates could now move at their own reading and learning rates. The rate at which conventional programs moved often left many of the less educated and duller prisoners in the dust, further fostering cheating and manipulation of program personnel. When testing was valid and unbeatable, we found Prisoners often studied for programs at night and in the evening when prison staffing was at its lowest ebb and inmate boredom at its highest.
Since treatment staff are not directly confronting or threatening inmate denial systems with these programs, there is significantly less resistance on the part of substance abusing inmates who would automatically tune out a human lecturer or group leader who was often be perceived as nagging or threatening. Computerized testing proved very successful at cracking inmate denial systems, readying them for any group therapy sessions that might be made available through the prison, or for AA programs.
By the time substance abusing prisoners are incarcerated, there have been scores of people who have nagged, lectured or threatened them with regard to their self destructive drug habits. Many have developed an automatic switch in their head, which quickly shuts off mental processing when they feel they are being lectured. The reading of booklets, which confront the same problems, is much less threatening to prisoners. Prisoners had no excuse for not learning programmed material. They had physical possession of study material to use at their convenience. When inmate cheating was brought to a halt, prisoners could be seen carrying these booklets to work or studying them during off hours in their cells or during breaks on the prison yard.
Although disgruntled by the amount of effort required to successfully pass these programs, by about the third program section, inmates realize that they were reading about themselves and their problems without having to participate in potentially stressful and threatening therapy groups with other inmates that they did not trust. For some reason, it took three tests to convince the average prisoner that the program could not be cheated and that they may as well buckle down and study. They learned that they couldn't count on their compadres to help them through these tests and they couldn't count on cheat sheets either.
As prisoners progress through these programs, having no actual person to defend against, their denial and defense systems are slowly lowered as they come to the conclusion that they actually do have a problem. They find a new understanding of those problems and see that there is hope of overcoming them. It was discovered that when programs were validly tested, inmates in their cells at night would discuss what they were learning in computerized programs and begin talking with cellmates who had similar problems. The number of inmates volunteering to take computerized programs increased. The format had no problem dealing with the increased traffic flow as long as administration went along with keeping the labs open a little longer.
As the number of these programs increased, it became evident that Computer assisted programs could provide inmates the tools to help themselves at little cost to society while at the same time offering inmates hope and fostering an attitude of gratitude rather than the resistance and resentment generated by directly confronting their denial systems in a group therapy format or the hatred and resentment generated by providing no programming at all. Anonymous inmate feedback from graduates of computer assisted programs was consistently glowing reflecting strong inmate approval and the feeling that at least they were being given the tools necessary to help themselves.
While these programs proved popular with inmates and effective in the break down of their denial systems, it was clearly understood that inmate acceptance alone would not be sufficient to gain favor or support with prison administration.
Saddled with preconceived notions of what prison programs should be and struggling to find the money to keep their security forces at least half way decently outfitted, such a novel approach to the valid mass programming of prisoners was expected to meet much resistance from program administration and it did.
Program costs have traditionally been a sticking point within prison settings with regard to the implementation of any new program. In order to keep program costs as low as possible, the computer assisted program format was specifically designed to operate on older computers, which are currently being trashed or relegated to government surplus warehouses within prison systems in great numbers. Even the older 8088 computer that governments are throwing away by the thousands are capable of testing six inmates an hour over a series of different rehabilitation programs very much faster than an inmate could possibly take a test. A lab of ten of these inexpensive computers is capable of processing sixty inmates an hour through variety of comprehensive rehabilitation programs.
At one time there were computer labs in operation within state prison units which were processing close to three hundred inmates per WEEK through valid, "honest" comprehensive programs such as Parenting, Alcohol Education, Aids Education, Drug Education and Co-Dependency. Of interest to prison administrators who had any brain at all would be the fact that close to one thousand five hundred hours of waking inmate time have been productively structured and occupied within the period of a single month by a lab of these old, inexpensive surplus computers. The machines responsible for administering these programs would have been destroyed or bid out for private sale for only a few dollars each by state surplus had they not been salvaged for the purpose of program testing.
A number of these old junkers have tested thousands of inmates and have been operating flawlessly for years.
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