Experiences with Digital Scams Post-Incarceration in the U.S.

When people are released from prison in the United States, they reenter into a highly digitized world that they have little to no experience with or preparation for. This lack of experience makes them potentially vulnerable to digital scams and phishing attempts upon release. Towards addressing this digital divide, we ran a workshop to teach and learn about digital security and privacy needs unique to the formerly incarcerated community (in our area of the U.S.). At this workshop, we deployed a survey to both participants (N=20) and volunteers (N=12). We later followed up with a more targeted survey specifically asking about scams and scam susceptibility among formerly incarcerated people (N=20, 4 of whom also attend the workshop). We additionally include personal narratives from three formerly incarcerated researchers (co-authors on the paper) about their experiences with scams. Combining all of this data (N=48 unique respondents), we find that scam exposure and victimization in this community is common, and we document a variety of risk factors: digital literacy challenges, heightened coercive potential of scams which purport to be from law enforcement or governmental bodies, loneliness during incarceration, financial instability post-incarceration, and a fear of stigmatization and repercussions from reporting. At the same time, we find that participants recount some mitigating factors, including belonging to a community that faces common challenges and therefore builds strong community networks to turn to for help. We close by identify gaps between best practices to avoid scam victimization and the realities of being currently or formerly incarcerated in the U.S., and making recommendations.