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The Social Mile - How (Psychosocial) ICT can Help to Promote Resocialization and to Overcome Prison

Published: 05 December 2019 Publication History

Abstract

There is currently uncertainty in the research community as to how ICT can and should be designed in such a way that it can be convincingly integrated into the everyday lives of prison inmates. In this paper, we discuss a design fiction that closes this research gap. The descriptions and results of the study are purely fictitious. Excluded is the State of the Art as well as the description of the legal situation of prisons in Germany. The analysis of the fictional study data designed here thus refers to the real world in order to derive ethical guidelines and draw practical conclusions. It is our intention to use these results as a possible basis for further research. The paper presents results of an explorative study dealing with the design, development and evaluation of an AI-based Smart Mirror System, Prison AI 2.0, in a German prison. Prison AI 2.0 was developed for daily use and voluntarily tested by eight prisoners over a period of 12 months to gain insight into their individual and social impact, with an emphasis on its ability to actively support rehabilitation. Based on qualitative data, our findings suggest that intelligent AI-based devices can actually help promote such an outcome. Our results also confirm the valuable impact of (Psychosocial) ICT on the psychological, social and individual aspects of prison life, and in particular how prisoners used the Smart Mirror system to improve and maintain their cognitive, mental and physical state and to restore social interactions with the outside world. With the presentation of these results we want to initiate discussions about the use of ICT by prisoners in closed prisons in order to identify opportunities and risks.

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction  Volume 3, Issue GROUP
GROUP
December 2019
425 pages
EISSN:2573-0142
DOI:10.1145/3375021
Issue’s Table of Contents
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Publication History

Published: 05 December 2019
Published in PACMHCI Volume 3, Issue GROUP

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Author Tags

  1. ai-infused
  2. cscw
  3. digital participation
  4. prison
  5. prisoners
  6. psychosocial ict
  7. qualitative research
  8. smart mirror
  9. social participation
  10. voice-based technology

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  • Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)

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  • (2024)Exploring the World of Smart Prisons: Barriers, Trends, and Sustainable SolutionsHuman Behavior and Emerging Technologies10.1155/2024/61581542024:1Online publication date: 9-Sep-2024
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