We have already talked about how touch screen technology can benefit your business and which industries are blossoming due to its advantages but how are payment kiosks helping the government’s prison sector?

Kiosks in prisons are not a new thing, with computer technology existing in there to keep the inmates connected with the world and benefit from keeping up-to-date with new information.

They are heavy-duty kiosks with a toughened glass screen to cope with all the hustle and bustle of every-day life in prison; offering information on prison job vacancies, health and wellbeing, legality and available courses.

But what about payment kiosks?

Over in America, in as many as 30 states, the jails have installed payment kiosk, credit card machines and signed agreements with phone centres to process bail payments.

The third parties charge seven per cent of the total bail to defendants and some of the contractors are giving back a small fee to the government.

Advantages of the payment kiosks in the prisons include;

-      Helps reduce jail crowding because less time is spent behind bars

-      Allows people to free themselves faster without burdening family relatives

Opposition to the touch screen technology, mainly bail agents and bounty hunters, argue against the change to the justice system reporting their distress at the third-party companies operating lawfully without licences and their decline in business.

One concern bail agents have raised is that defendants who post bail electronically by plastic may be less accountable with no one taking responsibility for the criminals.

The Pinellas County Sheriff, of Florida, has set the maximum bail inmates can post using credit cards at $750.

Supposedly eight to ten people a week are using the kiosks to bail themselves out.

So could it be the future of UK prisons that they too will install the payment kiosks into the British justice system? We do not have the same system as to paying for bail, but could the payment kiosks be used for a different function?