![]() AdvertisementĪ promotional video from industry leader Securus. Between March 2014 and November 2017, the county collected $68,777 from the service-or around $20,000 per year. "The county takes a 50-percent commission off the top," he told us. Officials were also concerned about contraband being smuggled into the jail.īut Pasley believes that the potential revenue from video visitation was also a significant factor. "What they said is that the in-person visits were a strain on staff," Pasley told Ars. "The jail population has been increasing largely due to drug use," Pasley said. Nevertheless, the introduction of video-visitation services are often followed by restrictions on in-person visits. Tex Pasley, an attorney with the Knoxville-area prison reform group No Exceptions Prisons Collective, told us that the Knox County Jail introduced its video visitation service in March 2014-then eliminated face-to-face visits the very next month. That triggered such an outcry that companies have removed these provisions from more recent contracts. In the early years, companies selling video-visitation products would ask jails to sign contracts requiring them to phase out in-person visits. "According to our data, about 74 percent of jails that implement video technology end up eliminating or scaling back in-person visits." "Well over 600 correctional facilities across the country have implemented some form of video-calling system," said Lucius Couloute, an expert at the Prison Policy Initiative. That not only pushes up the prices paid by prisoners' friends and family, it also creates an incentive for jails to make the in-person visiting experience less attractive so they'll make remote calls instead. ("Commission is a euphemism for kickback," Friedmann said). And jails get a hefty percentage of that money.Īlex Friedmann, a prisoner-rights advocate at the Human Rights Defense Center, told Ars that, rather than awarding the contract to the company with the best rates, jails often pick the company that will pay the largest percentage commission to the jail. While on-site video visits are usually free, the companies providing the system generally offer a paid off-site video-calling service, too. So switching to video visitation can save cash-strapped jails money.īut jails also profit more directly from limiting in-person visits. ![]() 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. But critics say that money plays a big role. There are a number of reasons jail administrators have gone this route. ![]() 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. Theoretically, these products could make it easier for inmates to maintain their relationships with family and friends outside. ![]() In recent years, more and more jails have introduced video-calling services. As a result, "when you look at the person on the screen, you cannot look them in the eye," Parr said. On the kiosks Parr and Harker used, the video camera was several inches above the screen. I've visited through glass before and that broke my heart when that happened. "This was the most dehumanizing and impersonal that I've ever experienced. "I have experienced prison visitation a lot in my life," she told Ars-her father spent some time in prison when she was a child. ![]() Instead, she was ushered into a cramped, crowded room for a "video visitation." She talked to him on a telephone handset while watching a grainy video feed of his face. When Rebecca Parr visited her nephew Justin Harker recently at the Knox County Jail in Tennessee, she didn't get the opportunity to see him face to face-or even through glass. ![]()
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