If you want to use the new legal information kiosk at the Southwest County Jail in Riverside County, California, you'll have to get in line.  Likewise, there is a waiting list to access the technology at the county's Robert Presley Detention Center.  Now that legal research is just a tap on a touch screen away, inmates are flocking to the terminals that have been recently installed in correctional facilities in California and Hawaii.

Produced by Touch Sonic Technologies (TST) and LexisNexis U.S., the kiosks, known as TSTLL, enable inmates to perform the legal research they are entitled to, according to federal law, without ever having to open a book.  Previously, to explore the legal world, inmates used reference books, which required continual updating and presented problems for some jails and prisons.

"Inmates just tore [the books] up and it was a big mess," said Captain Alan Flanary, Commander of Riverside County's Indio Jail, one of five county facilities where the technology has replaced reference books.  Also, he said, inmates would sometimes hide contraband in the books, which compromised the security of the facility.

With the kiosks, however, inmates aren't dealing with an abundance of reference books that they can destroy or use to disguise items that they are not allowed to have inside the facility; they are simply sitting in front of a screen.

Sturdy Workstations

"[The inmate's] workstation just consists of a chair, a stool and a table surface that is underneath [that the inmate uses to write on]," said Jack Long, Vice-President of TST, the California-based company that produces the hardware for the kiosks.  LexisNexis, a leader in legal, news and business information, contracted with TST to supply the legal data and materials, he said.

To access the legal information, inmates utilize a touch screen keyboard, which they can use to type in subjects they are interested in learning about by keywords, such as burglary or assault.  The screen is durable and encased in a black, briefcase-sized, box that is locked, according to Long.

"The unit has stood up very well to any abuse problems," Long said.  "The touch screen is shatterproof.  It's very, very tough to break and, if it does break, it's safety glass," he added, pointing out that broken pieces could not be used as weapons.

Once an inmate has typed in a request for information on the touch screen, a server, which is typically located in a staff-only area, generates information about the inquiry and sends data, which may include listings of different legal cases or statutes pertaining to a particular topic, to the inmate's screen.

"That server becomes the heart of the network that distributes the data to those boxes [that contain the screens]," Long said.

Every month or so, LexisNexis updates the data the servers provide, so that inmates have access to the most current legal information.  Reference books, too, are updated monthly with inserts, but, with each update, the books became more cumbersome.

Simple Searches

A major advantage to using the kiosk system versus reference books, according to Long, is that once an inmate has initiated a search, he is able to easily navigate through the system. 

"[The system] is set up to do the simplest searches.  You do not have to be computer-literate to use it," Long said.  "Once [an inmate] is in there and he's looking at his resources or documents or things he wants, within those pages there are links so he can research a vast amount of data," he added.  "He just moves right through the search process."

Breezing through legal information using the kiosk touch screens may be a more pleasant experience for some inmates who previously had a difficult time sorting through the information stored in books.

When inmates are faced with a whole wall of legal reference books, they can become overwhelmed, Flanary said.

"They don't even know where to begin," he added.  "[The kiosks] are so much easier for them to use."

Saving Space

Aside from their user-friendliness, the kiosks provide correctional facilities with another advantage: they save space.  This was a main consideration for the Hawaii Department of Public Safety when it decided to have legal research kiosks installed in four of its correctional facilities.

"I looked at the space constraints that are facing us and the fact that, with the kiosk, I could do away with any future print volumes and save on space," said Deanna Espinas, Library Services Officer for the department.  "In terms of cost, it looked like it was a comparable expense, but I looked more at the space constraints."

Last November, one kiosk was installed in each of Hawaii's smaller correctional facilities, including Hawaii Community Corrections Center, Kauai Community Correctional Center, Women's Community Correctional Center and Kulani Correctional Facility at a cost of $5,000 per kiosk per year.

"If my funding were increased, I would love to put this in a larger facility, also," Espinas said.  But, for now, she explained, inmates in the smaller facilities are the only ones who have access to the kiosks and the results have been positive so far.

"It's been working out really well," Espinas said.  "The inmates picked [it] up really quickly.  It wasn't that difficult for a lot of them."

The only request some inmates have regarding the kiosks, Espinas said, is that they gain access to more legal information through the touch screen system than they had through the reference books. 

Added Benefits

LexisNexis allows correctional facilities to set parameters for what type of legal information offenders will be able to access through the kiosks, so, Espinas elected to have the same legal materials available through the kiosks that were available in book form.

"A lot of [the inmates] thought that we were going to expand [our law library] to include more resources, but I didn't want to go that route," Espinas said, citing budget constraints as the main reason for her decision.

According to Espinas, Hawaii complies with federal laws regarding inmate access to legal research materials and allows its inmates to research Hawaiian statues, the state's court and appellate cases, an updated digest of Hawaiian cases and U.S. federal code.

Espinas is not planning to offer inmates more legal materials through the kiosks beyond those.  Nor is she utilizing another system feature: the ability to track offender use of the kiosks.

In addition to enabling corrections agencies to decide exactly what legal data they want to supply to their inmates, the kiosks also have the capability to track which inmates use the system and for how long, so there is never a dispute over whether or not an inmate had appropriate access to legal research materials.

According to Espinas, the kiosk can take a picture of the inmate sitting in front of the screen and document how much time he or she spent there.  Although the department is not currently using this feature, she said, it can help to prove whether or not an inmate had access to legal information.

The Legal Reference Tool of the Future

With their various capabilities and ease of use, legal research kiosks may soon be cropping up in more correctional facilities than just Hawaii and Riverside County, Flanary believes.

"As people see how well it works, I suspect other people will move to this," he said.

Long agrees.  In fact, TST is in negotiations with about 12 other states to install kiosks in correctional facilities there, he said, predicting that at least three of the states will be using the technology before this summer.

"The move to electronic delivery is going to happen in prisons," Long said.  "Kiosks have been used now by the public for a very long while.  The use of kiosks in the corrections industry is on that is going to just grow and grow and grow."

Resources:

To learn more about TST, go to www.touchsonic.com

To learn more about LexisNexis, go to www.lexisnexis.com
To contact Alan Flanary, call (760) 863-8841

To contact Deanna Espinas, call (808) 587-1273