Since February, most eyes in the Orleans Parish jail have been locked in on electronic computer screens. 

The entire jail received the Smart Communication tablets free of charge. Sort of.

The jail provided the tablets at no cost to help incarcerated people communicate more consistently with their families, according to the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, now called Orleans Justice Center.

The sheriff’s other main goal was to “reduce overall violence in the jail, improve quality of life and reduce tension among incarcerated residents.” And that seems to have worked, according to a month-long tally done by the sheriff, which found that chaos has declined – disciplinary incidents dropped by nearly 40% in February and were down 63% for the month of March, when compared with January.

The Lens checked the sheriff’s conclusions with a 42-year-old man who is currently on the inside. “You can tell. You see it everyday, really,” he said. “Stuff that normally happen don’t happen no more.”

He’s seeing a new sort of calm, he said. 

No more waiting in long lines fighting over the wall phones. Fewer arguments over whether the tier’s television should be on a movie or sports. No more wondering if money cleared in your account.

People within the jail can now watch movies, listen to music, play videos, or make phone calls while sitting on their bunk or in the day room. They also have free access to a digital law library of case law, along with self-help, religious, and educational programs. Smart tablets can’t access social media or Internet searches. The heavy-duty tablets are designed to withstand jailhouse use, with connections that block Google, Facebook, Instagram, and similar apps used in the free world.

Often, programming costs a penny per minute

While the tablets seem wildly popular, they have some downsides. The content provided by the tablet company, Smart Communication, comes with costs that can feel steep: a penny a minute to listen to the radio, rent movies, or play video games. 

E-messaging is one of the top costs. Smart Communication uses a point system, for a penny a point. One email costs 50 points. Per minute, phone calls run six points, with video calls priced higher, at 11 points. A family member or friend can purchase points in increments: 1,000 points for $10, for example. 

With every transaction, Smart Communications collects a $3 fee. So while family members can purchase messages in bulk for as little as $5, that $5 — like all transactions—comes with a $3 fee.

A new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that took effect in November lowered phone rates considerably and banned audio-video fees and all commissions to correctional agencies. A January 2024 letter from Smart Communications to the sheriff’s office described the $3 transaction fee as a still-allowed “service cost” that would help the company keep down other costs. But as of November, the jail has received no payments for phone and video services – a drop of $1.2 million in commissions revenue for the jail from the previous year, when the company Securus provided phone services, according to the jail spokesperson. OJC does issue some 15-minute free phone calls, to help maintain outside connections while detained.

But at first, inmates say, they were told that they would be able to earn points for the tablets by completing educational or self-help programs — reducing their reliance on money coming from friends and family for their tablet use. Similar points-earning incentives are available in jails elsewhere.

But a sheriff’s office spokesperson said that jail leadership was not aware of such a points system for Orleans.

E-books may replace paperback books in jail

Inside OJC, tablets turn on in the morning at six and stay on until 11 at night, when they go into a charging-station shelf so that they will be fully charged by morning.

E-books are free on the tablets. But as the jail moved closer to distributing the tablets, officials announced that they would eventually discontinue paper books sent to inmates by mail. 

Family members can still order paperback books for a loved one, as long as the books are sent directly from Amazon or a book publisher. But the jail’s leadership has not yet decided whether books will continue to be available, a sheriff’s spokesperson said.

Relying on the new tablet technology alone could limit reading, because tablets are picked up by 11 p.m. 

That’s the best time to settle in with a book, when the tier is quiet, said the man held in OJC. “It’s really great for your mental health, because you go through so much in here.” 

If the jail stops allowing paperback books, he would lose that moment. “Every person on the tier look for a book at night,” he said. “It’s a time when everyone can go in the cell and get their real peace.”

Though he doesn’t believe that tablets should push paperbacks out of the jail, he is otherwise 100% pro-tablet. “Let’s say we didn’t have the tablets,” he said. “Days would be hectic again.”