By C1 Staff
NAPA — Inmates at the Napa County Jail will have to wait another two months for their tablets.
Officials are seeking tougher and more secure tablets for inmate use, according to the Napa Valley Register.
A pilot program involving the tablets was put on pause as officials search for better hardware and software; the program is expected to return this summer.
The staff services manager for the county Department of Corrections, Bret Prebula, said the program has been popular with inmates but there have been issues with vandalism and illegal modifications.
The tablets are designed to only communicate with the jail’s private network, and thus unusable outside jail walls.
With the hardware, inmates can view customized programming including learning modules, which staff hope will make them less likely to re-offend and return to jail.
The program was originally stopped a week in after two inmates attempted factory resets in order to evade security features. Another inmate attempted a software reset earlier this month.
The tablets are designed by Jail Education Systems, who hope to ship tablets to the jail this summer with modifications that will prevent resets. They will also be constructed with a new process combining chemical and mechanical bonding to prevent breakage or disassembling.