A new model that lets prisoners transport their belongings to and from prison in a vehicle has been approved by the US Department of Transportation.
The new Transport Vehicle is designed to transport items weighing up to 1.5kg in a single unit and is available for the US prison population.
The vehicle can be purchased online or at the US Postal Service’s National Offender Management System (NOMS) site.
The first vehicle to be produced in the US will be delivered to prisons and jails across the US in 2018.
The Transport Vehicle has been developed by an outfit called Transportation Solutions, a company based in Texas.
It has received funding from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is providing the funding.
The Department of Justice has also provided a grant of up to $3m to support the development of the new transport vehicle.
The US Postal service will also be providing a delivery service to inmates for the first time in 2018, the agency said.
The NOMS system allows inmates to move their personal belongings around the prison complex by using specially-designed, self-locking containers.
It is hoped that inmates will use the Transport Vehicle to move belongings between facilities and between the different lockdowns.
The containers can be equipped with locks for each container, meaning that prisoners will be able to carry items across the facility to their cells.
They will also have access to the mail facilities, the delivery service and the mail boxes in each prison.
According to Transportation Solutions founder and CEO Michael Meeks, inmates will be given the option to use the new Transport Vehicles when they are transferred to new facilities.
This is in line with the NOMs approach to transferring inmates, which focuses on providing access to their own personal items.
According the company, Transport Vehicles will be available to the US, Canada and Mexico prisons in 2019.
More to come