Prisoners serving long sentences have never been online.
This is what they think it’s like:
I’ve never seen the internet in person. I was locked up in 1997. CDs were a big deal. I knew the internet was called the information superhighway for a reason, but I had no idea how connected society really is through the internet.
I didn’t understand how big and new it is. It was a global name that has changed the world.
I could imagine the information that the internet provided when it came to research, and that is how it existed in my mind, just as a tool. If you had asked me what a URL was, I would have just looked at you.
I imagined an app was a button you pressed on your phone with no clear conceptualization of what it really did.
—Tommy Winfrey, 35, serving 25 years to life; entered prison in 1997
