Overview
- The North Rhine‑Westphalia Justice Ministry announced a pilot on Monday to set up 'digital social rooms' with specially secured computers in the prisons at Geldern, Rheinbach and Essen.
- Use will be strictly limited: prisoners may only open preselected websites on locked devices and a prison officer will monitor every session.
- The ministry says the rooms are meant to let inmates keep outside contacts, use education and qualification offers, and complete digital applications such as driver’s license forms with translation tools where needed.
- Officials argue the move could raise safety by cutting trips to external authorities and reducing paper mail that has in some cases carried synthetic‑drug contamination into facilities.
- The project is an evaluative pilot with no firm rollout timetable and will be judged on security, rehabilitation outcomes and operational effects including the need to curb contraband phones and other breaches documented by the ministry.