The Beautiful and Destructive Potential of Using VR on Prisoners in Jail

This week there were a few stories of questionably ethical uses for virtual reality headsets that raised some new questions about how it can and should be used. In one example, a California-based prison used VR on prisoners placed into solitary confinement as part of a general population reentry program, where incarcerated people “visualize scenarios like their first steps outside the prison walls, before working through their emotional and physical response with volunteers.” It is also being tested as a way to offer prisoners who are placed in solitary confinement a mental break and reward of sorts by letting them experience riding a rickshaw through Thailand, for example. Which raises new questions as the article also notes: “does VR represent a tool to give them a little respite, or is it just a buzzy band-aid on a cruel practice?”

In another story this week, there is a VR program researchers are testing that puts domestic abusers into the position of their victims in an effort to activate their empathy and make them feel regret for what they put someone else through. Early results of the program show that it may be effective in helping to rehabilitate and change the attitudes of domestic abusers. As the technology continues to get better, the potential for using it with captive audiences like prisoners (no joke intended) will continue to grow. In the positive case, it could help with everything from skills development and training to prepare them for re-entry to using it as an empathy machine to help offenders see the impact of their actions from another perspective. The downside, of course, is that VR becomes a Matrix-like tool of control to manipulate prisoners and addict them to technology that keeps them in a fantasy world, unable to emerge back into real life when the time finally comes to be released.