Questions Surround Rollout of Tablets in Nevada Prisons

State lawmakers and justice reform groups are questioning the associated costs and services available on tablets offered to those incarcerated at correction facilities.

Assembly Bill 35, passed nearly unanimously during the 2023 legislative session, authorized those incarcerated within Nevada Department of Corrections facilities to have telecommunications such as tablets.

Proponents of the bill said access would enable people in state prisons the ability to stay in contact with family members, access medical care quicker, obtain educational training, apply for resources ahead of release, and even access entertainment.

Only inmates at two facilities, Jean Conservation Camp and Carlin Conservation Camp, don’t have access to tablets, NDOC prisons director James Dzurenda told the legislative Interim Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

The costs to communicate and access services have been higher than expected, said Nick Shepack, the Nevada state director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center.

“There was a promise that there was going to be items that cost, and there were also going to be items that were supposed to be super beneficial, but came at no cost,” Shepack said in an interview with Nevada Current. “What we’ve seen is exactly what I feared, which is they rolled out all the extremely expensive stuff and everything else is coming eventually.”

One of the points of contention was the service charge to put money on the tablets that varies depending on how much is loaded.

While groups were aware during the contract process that there would be a service charge for the tablets, they are still hoping state officials will step in to offer some sort of solutions to address those costs.

Shepack said the charge creates a system where families with lower incomes who might only add $10 for a loved one incarcerated would pay an additional $5 service charge.

“The minimum you can put on is $10,” he said, adding the people who are likely to add that amount are “living paycheck to paycheck like that, not even able to make ends meet.”

State lawmakers, at the behest of groups like the prisoner advocacy group Return Strong and the Fines and Fees Justice Center, have capped other punitive prices such as high markups of commissary items and health care.

Shepack worried the tablets will create a new avenue to generate money off the backs of those incarcerated.

“We’re at a point where lockdowns are at an all time high,” Shepack said. “That means more time in their cells … of course, people are going to lean on these tablets to not go crazy while locked in their cell. And the prices they’re charging them are just extremely exploitative.”

Dzurenda attributed some of the higher costs, such as rates to make phone calls, to unforeseen changes from the Federal Communications Commissions, including the commission rolling back regulations adopted under President Joe Biden that placed caps on the cost of phone calls.

The rate was limited to 6 cents a minute in 2024. The FCC increased the limit to 10 cents a minute for larger prisons – 12 cents per minute for medium prisons – under President Donald Trump.

“That’s where the phone call adjustments came up,” Dzurenda said. “It was based on the FCC ruling and not based on us.”

He added the department is expecting additional changes and regulations from the FCC later this spring.

The department is also expected to receive a share of revenue collected from ViaPath, the telecommunications company contracted by NDOC to administer the services. However, Dzurenda said they weren’t sure how much revenue is expected or when it is supposed to be made available, adding it “was not spelled out” in the contract approved by the state.

“We are still estimating and guessing at what that revenue is going to look like,” he added.

Democratic Assemblymember Brittney Miller, who is co-chair of the committee, was concerned that there wasn’t any idea what the revenue would be.

“We don’t know if that check is going to be $17 or $17,000,” she said. “I’m just concerned that, or perplexed, that was a part of the agreement during this entire RFP (request for proposal) and contractual development.”

State Sen. Rochelle Nguyen also questioned the disconnect between the contract NDOC sought from ViaPath and what was ultimately approved by state agencies. She added it seemed like there were cheaper services NDOC sought that weren’t included in the final contract approved.

Tablets currently offer a variety of services such as the ability to write emails, access to religious services, and streaming entertainment – though the cost to stream movies and music at 5 cents a minute is another point of contention among justice reform groups.

Other services like access to medical care or the ability for those incarcerated to submit grievances still aren’t available.

Dzurenda said some of these services cost NDOC money but the department won’t know how much until it sees its revenue share from ViaPath.

NDOC, he added, is also having difficulty providing people with medical services via tablet because medical records can’t currently be accessed electronically.

“We do not have access to electronic medical records, and none of this can go through the electronic system,” he said.

Other services, like giving people the ability to file “grievances” for problems happening in the prisons, would require an update to the Offender Management System, Dzurenda said. He didn’t offer any details about the costs and process of updating the system.

NDOC is also looking at other additions to the tablet including partnering with the Clark County Library District to offer GED courses on the tablet and adding word processing, which he said would help people with legal filings.

He said he would want to include other services “that I know will be beneficial with programming,” he said, adding “It costs money.”

Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nevada Current maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Hugh Jackson for questions: [email protected].

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Republished with permission from Nevada Current