Some California prisoners are being allowed to purchase basic electronic tablets for the first time, it has been announced.
The new policy covers all Level I and Level II institutions such as San Quentin’s mainline, camps and females. Condemned Row prisoners at San Quentin will not be allowed to order the device.
The announcement is contained in an Oct. 12 memorandum from Kelly Harrington, director of the Division of Adult Institutions for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The devices cannot include a camera, microphone or any recording or picture-taking ability.
Vendors Walkenhorst’s and Union Supply Direct will compete to supply the tablets to inmates.
Walkenhorst’s representative Natalie Tovar visited San Quentin Oct. 22 to demonstrate the Hiteker Tablet. It is a 32-gigabyte, seven-inch, multi-touch screen tablet. “This device is very basic,” explained Tovar.
The $159 tablet comes with 40 video games and 100 books preinstalled. It will hold up to 5,000 games, songs and eBooks. Prisoners can purchase music and additional games.
Walkenhorst’s requires that customers mail the tablet back to them in order to add additional programs. eBooks cannot be added to the Hiteker.
Tovar demonstrated the device to men representing the Men’s Advisory Counsel, San Quentin News and various programs. The tablet comes with ear buds and has a rechargeable battery. It does not have speakers or wi-fi capabilities but can be connected to certain television sets for playing video games.
Available games include Andor’s Trail, Chess Walk, Dodge, Frozen Bubble, Sudoku and Solitaire, to name a few. “The catalogue will be out on Jan. 1, 2016,” Tovar assured the group.
Union Supply Direct representative Bonni Mircovich visited San Quentin on Oct. 30 with the competing U-Tab 7.
Like the Hiteker, the U-Tab 7 has a seven-inch, color, multi-touch screen and holds up to 5,000 songs, eBooks or games. The U-Tab 7 also holds 32 gigabytes of data and has a media output port for connecting to any television that has an HDMI connection.
One major difference is that the U-Tab 7 comes with five apps, five games, two educational apps and five books. Mircovich said the U-Tab 7 offers a larger selection of games and books “that you can update your device with.”
The U-Tab 7 comes with an SD Card reader that can update the tablet with digital media without requiring the user to send the entire device back to the vendor.
Once digital media from the SD Card is downloaded onto the device, the card is wiped clean and cannot be used again.
Union Supply is producing a new catalogue for the device due in January.
“We just expanded our book selection,” Mircovich said. Customers will have access to more than a million books through Union Supply’s distributor. Union Supply is interested in hearing from its customers about any books or games in which they are interested.
The U-Tab 7 has the capability to play movies; however, the department is not yet allowing vendors to send them to California prisons. Union Supply is negotiating with CDCR headquarters to add movies to its catalogue. Movies, if allowed by the administration, would be purchased and would automatically delete after 36 days and could be watched as many times as the user wants.
“If the department relaxes its regulations, we are ready to update devices and add more products,” Mircovich said.
The U-Tab 7 runs on the Android operating system and has a high-quality graphics drive.
Union Supply is working with the state to enter into agreements with educational programs to add to the tablets.
Prisoners can begin ordering the U-Tab 7 in December.