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More Jails Replace In-Person Visits With Awful Video Chat Products
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After April 15, inmates at the Adult Detention Center in Lowndes County, Mississippi will no longer be allowed to visit with family members face to face. Newton County, Missouri, implemented an in-person visitor ban last month. The Allen County Jail in Indiana phased out in-person visits earlier this year. All three changes are part of a nationwide trend toward "video visitation" services. Instead of seeing their loved ones face to face, inmates are increasingly limited to talking to them through video terminals. Most jails give family members a choice between using video terminals at the jail -- which are free -- or paying fees to make calls from home using a PC or mobile device.
Even some advocates of the change admit that it has downsides for inmates and their families. Ryan Rickert, jail administrator at the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center, acknowledged to The Commercial Dispatch that inmates were disappointed they wouldn't get to see family members anymore. Advocates of this approach point to an upside for families: they can now make video calls to loved ones from home instead of having to physically travel to the jail. These services are ludicrously expensive. Video calls cost 40 cents per minute in Newton County, 50 cents per minute in Lowndes County, and $10 per call in Allen County. Outside of prison, of course, video calls on Skype or FaceTime are free. These "visitation" services are often "grainy and jerky, periodically freezing up altogether," reports Ars. As for why so many jails are adopting them, it has a lot to do with money. "In-person visits are labor intensive. Prison guards need to escort inmates to and from visitation rooms, supervise the visits, and in some cases pat down visitors for contraband. In contrast, video terminals can be installed inside each cell block, minimizing the need to move inmates around the jail." The video-visitation systems also directly generate revenue for jails.
Even some advocates of the change admit that it has downsides for inmates and their families. Ryan Rickert, jail administrator at the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center, acknowledged to The Commercial Dispatch that inmates were disappointed they wouldn't get to see family members anymore. Advocates of this approach point to an upside for families: they can now make video calls to loved ones from home instead of having to physically travel to the jail. These services are ludicrously expensive. Video calls cost 40 cents per minute in Newton County, 50 cents per minute in Lowndes County, and $10 per call in Allen County. Outside of prison, of course, video calls on Skype or FaceTime are free. These "visitation" services are often "grainy and jerky, periodically freezing up altogether," reports Ars. As for why so many jails are adopting them, it has a lot to do with money. "In-person visits are labor intensive. Prison guards need to escort inmates to and from visitation rooms, supervise the visits, and in some cases pat down visitors for contraband. In contrast, video terminals can be installed inside each cell block, minimizing the need to move inmates around the jail." The video-visitation systems also directly generate revenue for jails.
They're all private labour camps at this point. Not that they never were either (chaingangs etc. building roads and railways), they just got more corporate.
Know what would save money? Not locking up almost 1% of your adult population, often for victimless crimes or for being unable to pay excessive fines. Start treating addiction as a disease. If it doesn't pose a danger to yourself or others, it shouldn't be the government's business what you put into your body. If it endangers yourself or others, then you should be committed for treatment, same as any other psych illness. Same goes for criminalization of sex workers (instead of going after pimps or customers). End excessive fines and policing for profit. Require fines to be proportional to income. For someone who's a poor working Joe or Jane, a $500 speeding ticket can be a week's income. For a rich person, it's pocket change, and they can probably take a few hours off of work to fight it as well.
Like Skype except run by a rapacious firm that charges more per minute than international calls cost in the 90s. Progress, baby! The worst part about it? We're talking about jails, where people are held before trial. i.e. many people in jails are legally innocent of a crime.
The video-visitation systems also directly generate revenue for jails.
And that, right there, summarizes one of the greatest problems with our penal system. The pursuit of profit. That is not their role. Well, I mean, we've allowed that to become a part of their role, but it's utterly reprehensible.
I hate that about this country.
Cruel and unusual punishment is carried out in American jails on a daily basis. I wish prison reform was a bigger point of focus for people.
I read the article but it didn't talk about my biggest concern - are these video calls monitored/recorded? I expect that they are...
Even if they were not, there's no way I'd want to tay things over this service that I might want to say in person.
I think it's a great idea to offer this as an additional service, maybe curtailing personal visits or making that a charge - but it seems really wrong to do away with in-person visits altogether.
I also wonder if it would have a dehumanizing aspect on inmates not to see friends and families in person on a regular basis....
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And remember to degrade and humiliate them in jail, before trial, because all people merely accused of a crime are guilty as sin.
I agree that a lot of police activity these days has become about revenue collusion from those who can least afford the losses.
Fines proportional to income may be a good idea, the only concern I have there is someone with no job at all should not be able to live consequence free... I just think there are a lot of things that are illegal now, that we need to make not illegal any longer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No shit. Private prisons are only about one thing. Actual rehabilitation is a looong way down the list of priorities.
I've got to wonder, if visitation is so expensive, why allow visits at all, unless required by law?
Basic human decency?
Recidivism rates are highly impacted by the inmates support and contact with family and friends. This is likely a secondary factor of why the prisons want to move to no in person visits. Private prisons have a serious issue in, the companies actually benefit from increased crime and greater offenses (ensuring a longer stay). It's pretty sad, we really need to regulate the prison system or just nationalize it, but way too many would fight the idea because they feel the tax payers shouldn't shoulder the burden (even though we already do simply because we are paying the prison companies' contracts) or fight any laws regulating businesses...
I've got to wonder, if visitation is so expensive, why allow visits at all, unless required by law?
In practice, the men who get more visits have less recidivism. I don't know which way the finger of causality points on this one.
I'm guessing no, but it'd be nice if it did. Bernie Sanders just came out in favor of universal suffrage. Meaning even prisoners get to vote. I like that. Folks say "We can't have rapists and murders swinging elections" but if you ask me if you've got so many rapists and murders they're swinging elections maybe fix that.
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Sure, sure. Cut prisoners off from normal, well-adjusted people as much as possible. Ensure they are only exposed to other prisoners, and guards. Great way to dehumanize them even more, drive them ever farther away from what is mentally and emotionally considered 'normal'. Then be sure to never, ever do anything positive to rehabilitate them, and you ensure that when they're done serving their current sentence, they'll be back in prison soonest. Rinse, repeat. Guaranteed slave labor force. I'd sooner shoot all convicts in the head straightaway rather than subject them to an environment that is guaranteed to make them into worse monsters, or make them into monsters if they weren't already.
Pre-emptive strike: Racist assholes who say "blacks are all criminals and deserve what they get", and small-minded, short-sighted myopians who will say "criminals don't deserve to be treated like human beings" can go fuck themselves. Likewise greedy corporate assholes who profit off privately-owned prisons, or who think we should have such a thing as 'for profit' prisons. Also likewise so-called 'conservatives' who will insult me for being a 'bleeding heart liberal' or whatever the hell you people say this week. If you're not going to even TRY to rehabilitate criminals into decent citizens and human beings then you may as well just kill everyone immediately who commits any felony and be done with it, rather than demonstrate that you're as much a violent animal as THEY are. Plain and simple.
For FUCK'S SAKE, it's the 21st century and we still do shit like this? Really, humans? Seriously!?
Where. In the facility I was in, attorney visits were also conducted over the video call system. Staff were supposed to disable the recording of those but who knows how often they remember to.
Criminal lawyer here. This isn't surprising, it's mission creep.
The vast majority of county jails already use sponsored VOIP calling systems. And they too are AWFUL. A 10 - 15 minute phone call will cost $20. The audio quality sucks. It sounds far away, it has popping sounds. It randomly disconnects.
And it was only a matter of time before the vultures came up with ways to further infiltrate the jails.
There is no technical reason why it should cost as much as it does. The reason is because the vendors give revenue kickbacks to the counties. Additionally they give subsidies to the jails in the form of free equipment. What they don't do is upgrade the ISP. Jails are still technologically low tech places and many (especially in rural areas) have bare minimum internet connections that are quickly saturated by even a few video sessions.
This is exploitation and revenue generation from a desperate and generally poor population.
Many prisons are run to make a profit...
Ensuring that prisoners either don't get released, or get brought back quickly is good for business.
Actually operating the visits costs money, which is detrimental to business.
Obviously the owners of these prisons will be trying to reduce costs wherever they can.
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Can you demand a refund if you are found not guilty?
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Who would listen? They do not even think it is needed to do anything about rape. The US has, as a whole, decided that people in prison are not worth anything.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.