Reduce Prison Television Noise

If you’ve worked in a correctional facility for more than a day and a half, then I’m sure you’ll be nodding your head in agreement to the source of your noise problems.

• Facility Design – It comes down to 3 things: type of material used, layout design and budget constraints. Construction with strong materials keep prisoners inside while also staying within budget constraints, but these restraints confine builders to construct using materials that reflect sound. Then you add an open space design and the noise starts to reverberate off the walls, growing louder.
• Inmate Activity – You know this scenario all to well: Your inmates are hanging around the commons area, the TV is on, radios blare, inmates are talking and yelling, doors clank open and slam shut, chairs move… And all of this creates a collision between competing sounds, each one getting louder trying to overcome the other.
• Overpopulation Problem – Take a cellblock that doesn’t absorb sound and I don’t care if you add more inmates or girl scouts, the noise level will soar. In fact, the US Department of Justice, on June 30, 2007 stated that American prisons and jails held 2,299,116 inmates. This accounted for 24.85% of the world’s total inmate population. It’s no wonder that capacity levels have exploded with the average Federal Prison at 153.8% of stated capacity and State Prisons at 112% of stated capacity.
• Officers Doing Their Job – Whether they’re walking around, talking on the radio, or opening and closing a door…it adds to the constant “battering ram” of noise. Of course, you can’t blame them for doing their job and what it requires.

• Noise creates stress in the body regardless of choice
• This stress ignites an alarm in your Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and automatically causes the instinctive “Fight or Flight” reaction in the body
• Since this “Fight or Flight” instinct cannot be controlled it causes the release of Adrenaline into the body and some of the body’s responses are:

1. Raised heart beat and blood pressure
2. Pupils focus
3. Waste elimination process decreases
4. Breathing becomes faster

• If the “Fight or Flight” instinct from noise and stress is active for too long the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) can’t counter the effects in the body and bring it back into balance, or what is called by scientists as “homeostasis”
• This prolonged stimulation to the body and inhibition of organs will cause physical ailments and promote stress related illnesses.

Some of these stress related illnesses are:

• Physical fatigue in a person’s body[5]
• Elevated blood pressure and other biochemical measures[6]
• Increased incidences of nausea and headaches[7][9]
• Cardiovascular issues such as hypertension[8]
• Myocardial Infractions (i.e. heart attacks)
• Weakened immune system
• Ulcers

In fact, doctors have reported that 75% to 90% of patient cases regarding heart disease, cancer and lung ailment also include stress related issues and complaints[8]

Now remember the “typical” inmate we referred to earlier with:

• This heightened level of stress due to the noise level
• With added annoyance factors
• Compounding the matter is the inability to control, predict, or tune out the unwanted noise from the TV and others talking
• And he cannot tune it out no matter how long he is exposed to it

Then you add on…

• The inmate is in an environment he dislikes
• The noise is perceived as unnecessary and
• Is caused by others who do not seem to care about his well-being!

Even if the inmate is not consciously aware of it, his body is still automatically releasing Adrenaline and Cortisol (i.e. stress hormone) into the blood system and since he can’t leave the prison he never has a chance to “decompress” from the buildup of stress.

This is where the Whole House FM Transmitter 2.0 can help you reduce noise in your correctional facility. The Whole House FM Transmitter 2.0 has successfully helped correctional facilities across America lower their noise levels and improve officer and prisoner safety.

Conversations – Inmates watching TV and listening with the use of an FM transmitter are less likely to strike up a conversation with someone else.

• Reduced conversation between inmates lowers noise levels
• Eliminates inmates who like to sit around the TV and start conversations that interrupt everyone else who wants to watch the TV.

Listen away from the TV– inmates no longer have to sit in front of the TV, they can be further away.

• Overcrowding shrinks your resources. For example, not enough chairs for everyone to sit and watch TV, but now you can sit in a chair further away and still enjoy the TV.
• This setup allows inmates confined to their cells to still hear the television.

Build Incentives for Appropriate Inmate Behavior – With the TV speakers turned off, and a inmate starts acting up, you can take away the FM Radio until behavior improves.

Or on the positive side, if they behave a desired way, you can reward them with an FM Radio to use.

Help Prevent Inmate Conflicts and Fighting – It has happened before, maybe even in your facility, where inmates will turn up the volume of the TV to cover up a fight between inmates.

Using our FM Transmitter would stop that from ever happening. You’ll provide safer conditions for your inmates and better monitoring of the inmates by your officers.

Less Aggression By Inmates – Studies show that noise creates stress, which in turn releases Adrenaline and Cortisol (i.e. stress hormones) into the body. If an inmate cannot minimize the noise or at least get a release of that stress, the body cannot return to a balanced state which is proven to cause among other things:

• Increased aggressiveness
• Decreased helping behavior
• Problems with interpersonal relationships
• A general inability to unwind

What that means is this: when you turn off the TV sound and broadcast it to FM Radios you will help reduce the noise in your cell block which will directly help lower stress levels and increase the security of your correctional officers.

The Whole House FM Transmitter 2.0 is the perfect solution to your elevated noise levels.