An inmate at the Fresno County Jail gets to use the new tablets issued on the Edovo platform. Photo contributed.

The Fresno County Sheriff’s office received 250 tablets for inmates of the Fresno County Jail to use to improve literacy and education.

The Samsung tablets work on an Edovo platform. Edovo is a company that specializes in bringing technology to prisons and jails.

The Edovo platform includes more than 10,000 hours of academic, vocational and cognitive behavioral therapy coursework, which can be counted toward a GED, according to a press release from the Sheriff’s Department. As an added incentive to use the products, points from completing courses can be used for movies, music, games and other forms of entertainment.

The tablets come in “tamper-resistant cases” and cannot access public internet. They also don’t come with messaging features and can only use Edovo programs.

Inmates can use the tablets on weekdays for two to four hours at a time, and have been issued as a means of helping to improve efforts at education and morale inside the jail. Currently, they’re only available to inmates in individual cells.

The Sheriff’s Office funded the program through its Inmate Welfare Fund, which gets revenue from commissary sales at the jail. The program is estimated to cost $500,000 over five years.