cryptogon.com

U.S. inmates are increasingly buying gizmos from prison commissaries, including MP3 players and flat-screen televisions — spending about $750 million annually on their gadget habits as several companies quietly seize this massive, captive audience and take niche marketing to an entirely different place.

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Appliances built for purchase at most prisons do, however, carry one (literally) clear distinction: They are encased in transparent plastic, allowing guards to routinely inspect them for drugs, weapons or other contraband.

“There are 2 million-plus inmates incarcerated in America at this time. We haven’t tapped every one of them. But we’ve seen more sales every year,” said Ed Michael, general manager of Swintec, a New Jersey company that has, since 2003, offered electronic typewriters to inmates.

Swintec has boosted its manufacturing numbers to as many as 5,000 machines per year and now does business with prisons in 46 states, including Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York, U.S. Penitentiary Leavenworth in Kansas, and San Quentin Prison in California, Michael said. The company’s highest-end typewriters contain enough memory to store 50 pages of text, turning them into functioning word processors –- without the Internet access. Prices range from $192 to $748.