Incarcerated People’s Limitations of Digital Agency and Re-entry into Digitalised Society: A Qualitative Study in a Women’s Prison in Finland

Abstract

Digitalisation creates opportunities for prisons to promote incarcerated people’s rehabilitation and re-entry into society. This study explores how access to the internet and digital services during imprisonment supports incarcerated women’s digital agency and re-entry into society in the Finnish context. Data (from a total of 37 interviews) were collected during a two-year fieldwork study by utilising an ethnographic and qualitative approach. The results show that the opportunity to use the internet and digital services can support incarcerated women’s re-entry into society, especially when digital interaction is combined with humane encounters, which is characteristic of Nordic criminal policy. However, the study found shortcomings in the digital agency of the incarcerated women, particularly in the areas of digital skills, access and the possibility of independent use digital services. Restrictions on its use are based on security concerns as well as on assumptions of incarcerated women’s deficient digital agency and an instrumental interpretation of normality.