Wired UK - 11.2019

START 026

ILLUSTRATION: GUY SHIELD

A prison in Finland has become a testing ground

for a new smart-prison project. Laptops and

tablets are appearing in cells and libraries, allowing

prisoners to read the news, practise arithmetic –

and take a course in artificial intelligence.

The module was originally designed at the

University of Helsinki as a more accessible version

of an Introduction to AI curriculum for computer

science students. The initial aim of the project,

backed by the Finnish government, was to get

at least one per cent of the country’s population

informed about the basics of AI.

After taking the course, Pia Puolakka, a project

manager at the Criminal Sanctions Agency – the

department in charge of Finland’s prison system

• wondered if it could be rolled out in correctional

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The prisoners

liberated by AI

For inmates in Finland, artificial intelligence may be

an escape route into digital-first employment

facilities. Puolakka wrote a proposal and, in May

2019, the course was added to an approved list of

websites accessible by inmates in Turku, a city in

the south of the country. “I was good at maths in

school, and it’s something that interests me,” says

one of ten inmates taking the course in the Turku

prison’s pilot ward. “But this is totally different

from the stuff I’ve studied before.”

There were a few initial hiccups. “There were

problems around the firewall on their internet

access. The links that prisoners used to do assign-

ments were separate from the whitelisted address,

and we had to generate email addresses for the

prisoners to use,” says Puolakka. As this is techni-

cally a university course, Reaktor, the tech consul-

tancy that helps distribute the course, is working

on a system that would enable prisoners to receive

university credits, and to take other courses.

Finland’s government has embraced the scheme

as a way of supporting inmates integrating into a

digital-first employment market. “Often, prisoners

are left outside of the development of these fields,

and the economy is changing so rapidly that when

people leave prison, they come out into a totally

new work environment,” says Megan Schaible,

director of the programme at Reaktor. “This course

is equally available to everyone.”

The scheme was due to be rolled out in three

more wards in prisons across Finland from autumn

2019, and Schaible hopes that the university and

Reaktor will be able to use data – such as retention

rates, or how quickly exercises were completed –

to assess what aspects could be improved in the

future. “You don’t want to leave these skills in the

hands of a few elite coders,” explains Schaible.

“You want to take the same premise and give

people knowledge around issues that impact

them.” Sanjana Varghese elementsofai.com

Breaking out: Laptops are appearing in cells because “you don’t want

to leave these skills in the hands of a few elite coders”

11-19-STFinnishPrisonAI.indd 26 17/09/2019 13:40