Jails Are Replacing Visits With Video Calls (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: In recent years, more and more jails have introduced video-calling services. Theoretically, these products could make it easier for inmates to maintain their relationships with family and friends outside. But many jails have moved in the opposite direction, using the advent of these "video visitation" services as an excuse to restrict or eliminate traditional in-person visits.

There are a number of reasons jail administrators have gone this route. But critics say that money plays a big role. In-person visitation requires more staff supervision -- both to escort inmates to and from visitation rooms and to make sure no contraband changes hands during a visit. So switching to video visitation can save cash-strapped jails money.

But jails also profit more directly from limiting in-person visits. While on-site video visits are usually free, the companies providing the system generally offer a paid off-site video-calling service, too. And jails get a hefty percentage of that money.

Comments

Re:And what about conjugal visits?

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, think we need to squeeze all humanity our of these toxic masculine evil men. They should be a hollow shell when we're done with them. They're just men after all; evil from the day they were born, amirite?

Re:And what about conjugal visits?

[bluefoxlucid]

I have proposed a Constitutional Amendment including the below:

The purpose of law being to establish Justice and insure domestic Tranquility, the execution of law against an offense shall be to redress and rehabilitate.

To this purpose, and to the purpose of a fair and speedy trial, no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property except as necessary for the security of the public, and any such action shall to the greatest extent achievable respect the dignity of the person as human beings and ensure their individual needs are met and rights protected; and no bail shall be required except where other means are insufficient to the same purpose; and civil damages shall not be imposed in excess of those necessary to redress.

I'm also running for Congress.

Many of our local politicians and the people with whom I speak on the streets concur with the full implementation of the Nelson Mandela Rules and other reforms. It's actually surprising how strong many of my proposals are: collective risk sharing, strong immigration programs automatically extending expired visas where there is no compelling reason to revoke, a minimum wage policy that rises faster than inflation (even the small businesses like this), and a corporate income tax policy based on net operating profits all seem to have pretty decent buy-in. Conservatives, Republicans, Progressives, business owners, the unions, I've gotten decent response rates among all of these types.

Reforming our prisons will take a little public education. People are not so hot on having open prisons for certain prisoners; many are quite happy with allowing prisoners who seem to not produce a public safety risk to work real jobs outside prison, so long as they come back to prison at the end of their shifts. Full and heavy use of parole seems to get split results at a brush, but good responses in face-to-face discussions. Everyone seems to think prisoners should be treated with full respect and dignity, cared for as well as possible, and not really punished--except for some personal exceptions that a few folks voice now and then because they dislike a certain type of crime.

More parole, cooperative work programs, and open prisons give people an experience with felons as being just people they may meet on the streets. They're sympathetic to anyone who is trying to be better, and so they accept these things in principle as an individualized consideration, and become more hesitant as you broaden it to a general systemic policy. It's actually fairly easy to get people to push against their own reservations and throw their vote behind reform, because they expect these things to reduce crime in total and that's valuable to them even if they fear that some of those people won't be separated from them at a given point in time.