How the Louisiana DPS&C Modernized and Secured Its Prison Education Using Amazon VPC

The Louisiana DPS&C oversees over 27,000 incarcerated individuals and over 46,500 people on probation and parole across the state. The department needed a way to provide education to inmates without providing unrestricted access to the internet, which could lead to risky behavior such as planning crimes or downloading illicit materials. The Louisiana DPS&C also wanted to reduce service downtime and keep costs low. “Half of our population is housed in over 80 local jails with very limited internet bandwidth,” says Rhett Covington, assistant secretary with the Office of Reentry, Education, and Chaplaincy Services at the Louisiana DPS&C. “We wanted to overcome those constraints.”

The Louisiana DPS&C contacted one of the cofounders of ATLO to create a solution to give inmates access to online content without unrestricted internet access. The Louisiana DPS&C project began in November 2016, and ATLO built the solution in 18 months. “When we first started, we had issues trying to put content on computers or with inmates getting access that they shouldn’t have,” says Covington. “After we started using ATLO, we were able to innovate without those security issues.” Using the ATLO solution running on Amazon VPC, the Louisiana DPS&C can make sure that all inmate student access to the internet is secure.

After the solution was built, the Louisiana DPS&C deployed it in eight state facilities across Louisiana. The department set up training labs where computers are spaced to comply with the rules of various test organizations and have partitions and headphones in place. Before setting up these computer labs, the department had to transport inmates to Baton Rouge by bus to take tests, which came with security risks and additional costs. Deploying ATLO at onsite computer labs improved the availability of these secure educational services and helped create a space for testing without the need of transportation.

The Louisiana DPS&C now saves time and money using the new solution on AWS. Before using ATLO, the department depended on the state for IT installation and fixes. This sometimes meant that software would not be loaded onto computers for a year, and some licenses had to be purchased for every stand-alone station. By using ATLO, the department no longer needs to load everything on each computer individually, and it can purchase educational materials, like reading software, for concurrent users that students across the state can use on any computer. “We have been able to expand at a larger scale while saving money by purchasing fewer licenses across the state,” says Andrea Buttross, deputy assistant secretary with the Office of Reentry, Education, and Chaplaincy Services at the Louisiana DPS&C.

To further improve availability and assist teachers, the Louisiana DPS&C began purchasing additional ATLO Launchbooks (laptops) using Amazon VPC. The laptops are checked in on a secured network when they arrive at a facility using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a service that provides secure and resizable compute capacity for virtually any workload. If there is a problem with a laptop, a new one is sent to replace it, and the one that doesn’t work is sent back to ATLO. This way, the Louisiana DPS&C saves on IT maintenance and avoids downtime for educational services for inmates. “When we need to get something fixed, using AWS, it takes us a matter of minutes instead of days,” says Devin Broome, cofounder of ATLO.

During their education, 90 percent of students within Louisiana DPS&C state facilities interact with the ATLO solution. These students are completing postsecondary industry-based certifications and high school equivalencies. Overall, these credentials contribute to making inmates less likely to recommit crimes. The department is working with local businesses like Toyota and General Motors to provide a path forward for its students. Different companies, from construction companies to car dealerships, are choosing to work with the Louisiana DPS&C because they see the value in these adult students. Many incarcerated students have a job right after release, which is made possible by the Louisiana DPS&C’s education solution.

John Sheehan, a formerly incarcerated individual, shared his experience, saying, “I was incarcerated for 36 years in Angola and I realized that education was the key to rehabilitation. In the early 1990s, I went to the Angola automotive school as a student. After graduation, I was accepted into the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. In 2010, the automotive instructor position became available, and I had the honor of being asked to be the lead instructor. Through ATLO, we were able to move to computer-based testing, which increased the frequency, quality, and outcomes of our students. Our next big step in automotive education was to get Toyota and General Motors training inside the fence. This was not just a big deal for the students and their salaries upon release but is also a huge benefit to dealerships because new employees can immediately start warranty work.”

 

The Louisiana DPS&C has improved the educational opportunities provided to the incarcerated population and plans to continue adding more career avenues for inmates who are at the end of their sentences. The department launched the Return for Good campaign in February 2023, where it brings employers into facilities to discuss with inmates the skills and knowledge that good employees need.

The Louisiana DPS&C is innovating on reentry and prison education, and other states throughout the country—including Florida, Ohio, and Texas—are following suit. “My goal has always been to provide the same access to resources for the incarcerated as people have sitting in their homes,” says Covington. “Because of our work using ATLO on AWS, we are breaking down barrier after barrier every day.”