The Risks of Technology for Formerly Incarcerated Individuals
A Q&A with CLTC researchers who study the experiences and “imagined futures” of formerly incarcerated and system-impacted people in California.
When people are released from prison, they may experience a range of harms related to digital technologies, from online scams and data breaches to surveillance and identity theft. Such harms can have a major impact on their lives, particularly as a disproportional number of incarcerated people are from low-income, disabled, Black, and Indigenous, and other underserved communities.
Over the past year, a team of researchers affiliated with the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity conducted a study to understand the perspectives of formerly incarcerated individuals toward digital technology. With support from the Rose Foundation, they held two focus groups with six formerly incarcerated individuals and non-profit organization affiliates residing in California to learn about their experiences, opinions, and future hopes regarding digital tools.
The researchers who conducted the study are Richmond Wong, a former postdoctoral scholar at CLTC and current Assistant Professor of Digital Media at Georgia Tech’s School of Literature, Media, and Communication, and Ji Su Yoo, a PhD student in the UC Berkeley School of Information. They co-authored their paper with James Pierce, Assistant Professor of Interaction Design at the University of Washington.
As part of their analysis, they explored participants’ “imagined futures for the potential of technology” to help improve personal connections and healing. They also explored the limitations of digital media literacy and cybersecurity education as a solution for protecting under-served groups online, and provided recommendations for transition support.
“We found that participants raised concerns about technology-mediated harms they experienced and institutions’ power and control over their personal information and day-to-day activities,” they wrote. “These concerns were especially pronounced during the re-entry transition.”
Their paper, tentatively titled “Investigating Technology-Mediated Harms During Transitions for Formerly Incarcerated and System-Impacted Individuals: Individual Experiences, Institutional Power, and Imagined Futures,” is a working draft, but we reached out to co-authors Richmond Wong and Ji Su Yoo to hear about their initial findings.
What were the origins of this project?
One motivation was to study how various forms of surveillance technologies affect different populations in California. People who experience surveillance often don’t have a way to express their feelings or describe their experiences — whether that’s being recorded from a neighbor’s smart-home camera, or being recorded in public spaces. We wanted to do a project that helps us understand and give voice to people’s experiences with surveillance systems.
What are some examples of the digital harms that formerly incarcerated people experience, and in what ways is their experience different from that of other people?
Like all individuals who sit at various intersections of technology expertise, familiarity, and comfort, formerly incarcerated people experience digital harms that the general population suffers through in their everyday lives. We wanted to actively go against the narrative that “this group” is so different or so similar to the “general population,” since this narrative otherizes or exoticizes under-represented groups. Even though we want to look at surveillance, if people in the focus groups wanted to discuss other harms instead — harms that were more readily and vividly affecting their livelihoods at the present moment — that is what we ran with, instead of imposing our own sense of what “harms” are most important to cover.
As we write in the last portion of our paper, participants had the most interesting thoughts about emerging technologies, but we found their attitudes toward emerging and futuristic technologies to be balanced and nuanced. They were not against all technologies, and found some “surveillance” cameras to be “highly securing” when they had the control, for example when they used them in their private home space.
Many digital harms that participants discussed align with the harms that other groups and the general population experience, such as encountering financial scams when trying to enroll in online banking or get financial support for education; experiences of police surveillance in cities; or facing extra scrutiny at airports, similar to what many people of color face. Across these cases, it’s often people in groups with less social power that face the brunt of these harms.
You use the term “sociotechnical harms.” What does that mean, and how are these different from other harms?
The term “sociotechnical systems” usually refers to technology and social aspects of technology, equally and holistically considered. Often we see more technology-centered or deterministic considerations about the role of tech in society (and smaller organizations, as well). Or we might see more simplistic solutions, such as “just providing enough technology access” to address people’s needs in spaces that have interconnected problems.
If we take the question of inefficiency, we are being the most inefficient by not preparing formerly incarcerated folks, setting them up for struggle, and then blaming them for the difficulties they face in seeking employment, housing, social support, education, etc. Our participants are highly proactive and did everything properly to make sure they were well-equipped to face all the to-dos necessary to establish themselves. We can’t keep giving the same excuses for our own ineffective strategies.
How did you find the subjects for your focus groups?
We were looking for community partners who already have a longstanding relationship working with formerly incarcerated groups in a collaborative and non-extractive way. We worked with a local community organization that has long standing experience working with these communities.
As this research occurred during Covid, we met virtually using Zoom, but this was useful as we were able to talk to folks who were both in and outside of the Bay Area.
Did anything surprise you as you were conducting the interviews?
We hosted two focus groups, and we were pleasantly surprised that participants were somewhat familiar with one another and seemed happy to see each other. Since they were glad to see each other, I wished this was not the only time they saw one another, and that they had structures and programs in place to keep the connections that they said they had inside.
Some of the participants talked about financial scams.
Yes, these seemed to be at the forefront of people’s minds. An interesting tension is that many of our participants knew about good cyber-hygiene tactics, or had received some training about it. But because of their backgrounds and need to begin engaging in today’s online financial systems, they were targeted by scams. Even knowing good cyber-hygiene tactics wasn’t always enough to prevent them from being exposed to a scam, which suggests that more action may need to be done.
You used “speculative” and future-oriented research methods, i.e., asking people to think about the future. How did this work in your interviews, and what did you find?
We asked participants to share what their visions for the future were, and whether and how there was a role for technology in that future. Participants expressed a range of possible futures, some where technology helped people, and some where technological development progresses but societal problems still exist or are made worse. We were inspired by some of the hopeful futures that participants expressed, including that digital technologies could help improve social connections among families and communities, and that technologies could also promote mental and physical healing among individuals and communities.
Based on your research, what are the most pressing challenges that lead formerly incarcerated individuals to experience harms?
The lack of protections and the realities of the predatory nature of the internet, which targets people who are trying to re-establish their administrative lives. This includes people who are from communities who are less banked and less administratively supported with accessing government and community resources, such as immigrants, students, and those searching for housing. Again, the people who are trying to be self-starters, to proactively take charge of re-establishing their livelihoods — financially, emotionally, and socially — are constantly attacked. This is not to say that various groups are not assisted or not resilient. The reality is that existing support programs are inconsiderate of people’s multiple stressors, especially during times of transition.
Your paper suggests reforming re-entry programs to better support people with challenges related to technology. What might this look like?
Well, there are several re-entry programs that do support people who are trying to get their bearings. Most of these programs may integrate technology support, but we also know that these integrations are still in their infancy.
What are your key takeaways for what can be done to reduce the harms that members of this group experience?
First of all, we need pathways for recourse. People need to feel like they trust institutions, only if those institutions are signaling and properly addressing these financial harms by providing due redress. For example, think about people who have “rewards credit cards” or “priority” services for any other financial, institutional, matters, and their needs and harms are addressed immediately. Of course, this has to do with keeping clientele with high levels of resources so that the institution/organization can keep customers satisfied, but you don’t see these forms of prioritization and care for people who are not in these already prioritized groups. It is pretty ironic, but rich/established/privileged people are those who love (and receive) free stuff the most. I would like to see this kind of preferential treatment happen at every level of government, as well as educational institutions, financial institutions, and medical administration.
What questions do you still have that you’d be interested in exploring in the future?
We want to continue this work with more groups who work with formerly incarcerated groups. We also want to make sure that we invest in people and students who want to engage with these topics with perspectives that differ from the “dominant” and more homogenous representation of perspectives and representation in human computer interaction, privacy, surveillance, and cybersecurity fields that we at CLTC are a part of.
I would encourage people who work in cybersecurity, privacy, or technology of any kind to reconsider the assumptions they make about the populations they work with, and to treat their stories with dignity and respect, in addition to engaging with people with respect. For instance, people who come from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds can still have a wealth of technical expertise and knowledge.
Interested in learning more?
- Watch a panel featuring members of Berkeley Underground Scholars, an organization of UC Berkeley students who were formerly incarcerated, discussing technology-mediated harms that disproportionately affect communities impacted by the criminal legal system.
- Listen to this podcast on related topics, produced by Berkeley Underground Scholars.
