COLUMBIA, S.C. — The big switch to digital TV has prison officials scrambling to keep one of the most important peacekeeping tools in prisons across the nation — broadcast television.
When the nation’s broadcasters make the switch from analog to digital signals Feb. 17, televisions that aren’t hooked up to cable, satellite or a converter box will be reduced to static. While TV might seem like an undeserved luxury for inmates, prison officials and inmates say the tube does more than fill year after year of idle hours. It provides a sense of normalcy and is a bargaining chip that encourages good behavior.
The TV industry has spent months preparing consumers for the switch, running ads and offering government-funded coupons that can be redeemed for the converter boxes needed to display the digital signal on older TVs. But officials worry that prisoners may be left to stare at blank screens because they don’t qualify for the $40 coupons.
“They won’t give us the switches, we called them,” said South Carolina Corrections Department Director Jon Ozmint. “We asked them for the coupons and they said they’re only available for households. I said, ‘We’re the big house.’ But they didn’t buy it.”
Ozmint said state money won’t be used to buy the undetermined number of converters South Carolina needs to keep its TVs running in common areas. Officials in many states haven’t figured out exactly how many converter boxes will be needed — and what the exact cost will be.
In Pennsylvania, inmates received notices telling them they’d have to pay for converter boxes for the TVs they are allowed to keep in their cells or hook up to prison cable systems, state corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said.
Dr. Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist and prison expert at the University of California at Berkeley, said there is clear evidence that TV privileges can positively affect prisoners. At Indiana’s Wabash Valley super-maximum security prison, he said, far fewer behavior problems were reported among inmates in isolation after they were given small televisions and prison officials spent more time talking with them.
“You don’t want to be managing prisoners who have nothing to lose,” Kupers said.
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