Customer Success Story
U.K. Ministry of Justice changes lives with prison rehabilitation
Prison rehabilitation is changing lives in the U.K., improving people’s futures and helping prisoners get on the ladder of opportunity and reduce instances of reoffending. Under the U.K. Ministry of Justice’s Launchpad program, prisoners can use their devices for administrative tasks that simplify day to day life and streamline formerly slow and inefficient processes, and access important daily information from their cells to gain self-confidence, and improve behaviour.
The U.K. Ministry of Justice relies on a secure, cloud-managed network from Juniper to deliver great Wi-Fi experience at its prisons and probation offices to support work, education, and human connection.
Overview
| Company | U.K. Ministry of Justice |
| Industry | Government and Non-Profit |
| Products used | AP32, AP45, EX2300, EX3400, EX4100, Wi-Fi Assurance, Wired Assurance |
| Region | EMEA |
400
Probation sites and prisons with fast, reliable Wi-Fi connectivity
12,000+
Government-issued laptops used by prisoners and staff connected to the network
800
Access points installed in a typical prison
Create a wireless launchpad for rehabilitation
Reducing reoffending is at the heart of the Ministry’s Launchpad rehabilitation program. Prisoners are issued laptops to connect to the network, select their meals, or obtain other approved services right from their cells. A great Wi-Fi experience is integral to the program’s success.
We wanted to deliver efficient network user experiences to our staff and prisoners,” says Nava Ramanan, deputy director for digital infrastructure and security operations, Ministry of Justice. “We want to know about slow connections and poor performance before our users do.”
Workers are free to roam with automated, cloud-based Wi-Fi
The Ministry wanted to provide fit-for-purpose connectivity and a secure network solution for its probation sites that leveraged a cloud-native, AI-driven microservices architecture. Juniper’s full-stack wired and wireless solution hit all the requirements; delivering network visibility, automated troubleshooting, and an exceptional user experience.
Not all the remote probation offices today have Wi-fi enabled services or public Wi-fi access to visitors. However, more than 400 probation sites and prisons in the U.K. use Juniper Mist™ solutions, and currently implementing 100+ probation sites with Wi-fi capabilities. Those probation sites use Juniper access points and switches that work with the Juniper Mist cloud architecture, driven by Mist AI™ to deliver fast, reliable, and continuously optimised connectivity to probation officers, and other staff. Juniper Networks SRX firewalls provide secure connectivity from probation offices to the enterprise network and cloud services.
For the IT staff, network configuration, management, and security duties are streamlined with AIOps. Juniper Mist Wi-Fi Assurance, Wired Assurance and Marvis™ Virtual Network Assistance work together to proactively solve wireless and wired network issues before they impact the user experience.
Prisoners do not have free and unfettered access to the internet from any device. For instance, the IT team can use the Juniper Mist dashboard to quickly identify if there’s an unapproved Wi-Fi device connected in the prison. “Juniper Mist gives us very effective alerts if unapproved hotspots or rogue devices try to connect to the network,” says Ramanan.
A solution for successful prisoner reform
Prisoners connect to the network for various purposes, with an opportunity to improve their digital skills and to reduce their likelihood of reoffending.
“We’re delivering more secure, faster, better network services,” says Ramanan. “Prison staff, probation officers and prisoners have embraced Wi-Fi and given us positive feedback.”
Proactive, automated Wi-Fi is a huge advantage to allow a central IT team to solve problems before they impact users in prisons or probation offices. “We can predict potential issues before they happen,” says Ramanan. “Mist AI automatically detects issues and proactively self-heals or sends an alert to an engineer, so they exactly know where there is an issue in the network, and what to fix.
Mist AI-driven tools like Marvis can step in and help solve problems. “If there’s a bad cable or port flapping, we can fix it before it hurts the user experience,” he says.
Looking ahead, the Ministry of Justice expects to gain even more value from the Juniper network. “We are delivering great user experiences, and there is so much more possible with the intelligence in Juniper Mist,” says Nava. "We’re just getting started to use technology to reduce reoffending to better prepare our populations for the future.”
U.K. Ministry of Justice Relies on Juniper for Organizational Efficiency and Prisoner Rehabilitation
Nava Ramanan, Deputy Director, U.K. Ministry of Justice, tells how his team leverages Mist, EX, and Marvis to deliver a stable launchpad for organizational efficiency and prisoner rehabilitation.
The Products
AP32
The Juniper AP32 access point integrates Mist AI for AX capabilities to automate network operation and boost Wi-Fi performance.
AP45
The Juniper AP45 brings the performance and patented virtual Bluetooth® LE (vBLE) technology of the Juniper AP43 to the 6GHz band for enterprises needing increased channel widths and capacity. Juniper AI solutions for Wi-Fi 6E optimize operator and user experiences with secure, near-real-time client-to-cloud automation, insight, and actions.
EX2300
The EX2300 Ethernet Switch delivers a compact, high-density, cost-effective solution for small network environments where space and power are at a premium.
EX3400
The EX3400 line of Ethernet switches are a cost-effective solution for today’s most demanding converged data, voice, and video enterprise access networks.
EX4100
The EX4100 Ethernet Switch is an AI-driven, cloud-ready access switching platform with flow-based telemetry and advanced security built-in, crafted for high-performance campus deployments.
Wi-Fi Assurance
Driven by Mist AI and machine learning, the Juniper Mist Wi-Fi Assurance cloud service automates troubleshooting and operations. It ensures wireless networks are predictable, reliable, and measurable while providing near-real-time visibility into service levels.
Wired Assurance
Juniper Mist Wired Assurance brings Mist AI to access-layer switching. It sets a new network management standard with AI-Native operations and automation, improving the experiences of devices connected through Juniper EX Series Switches.
Marvis VNA
The Marvis Virtual Network Assistant (VNA) cloud service is the first and only cloud service that offers a natural language conversational interface for enterprise networks, enabling simple and seamless interactions to optimize user and operator experiences.
Published September 2023