{"id":6205,"date":"2017-07-24T13:02:49","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T17:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=6205"},"modified":"2017-07-24T13:10:29","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T17:10:29","slug":"duckworth_2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/24\/duckworth_2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Senator Tammy Duckworth introduces the Video Visitation and Inmate Calling in Prisons Act of 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nLast week <a href=\"https:\/\/www.duckworth.senate.gov\/\">Senator Tammy Duckworth<\/a> introduced the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.congress.gov\/bill\/115th-congress\/senate-bill\/1614?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22video+visitation%22%5D%7D&#038;r=1\">Video Visitation and Inmate Calling in Prisons Act of 2017<\/a>. This piece of legislation is an important step in the fight against <a href=\"\/exploitation.html\">exploitation<\/a> in prisons and jails, and we encourage lawmakers, criminal justice professionals, and the general public to support its passing.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAlthough purportedly designed to help people communicate with incarcerated loved ones, video calling technology has typically been used in correctional facilities to replace \u2013 not supplement \u2013 in-person visits. In fact, <a href=\"\/visitation\/report.html\">74% of jails banned in-person visits<\/a> when they implemented video visitation, preventing incarcerated people from maintaining important ties with their loved ones.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe Video Visitation and Inmate Calling in Prisons Act of 2017 would require the FCC to regulate the use of video visitation and inmate calling services in correctional facilities (which it has moved away from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booker.senate.gov\/?p=press_release&#038;id=553\">under the new Chairman<\/a>); protecting incarcerated people from the elimination of in-person visits, the high costs of <a href=\"\/blog\/2017\/01\/19\/intrastate\/\">calling services<\/a>, and substandard video calling technologies.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nEarlier this year, the Prison Policy Initiative, along with a coalition of concerned organizations, came together to <a href=\"\/scans\/VideoVisitationInPrisonsAct_SignOnLetter.pdf\">support<\/a> a previous version of this bill. <span class=\"pullquote\" title=\"With the number of facilities switching to video-only visits growing quickly, regulating the exploitive video visitation industry has become an urgent concern.\">With the number of facilities switching to video-only visits growing quickly, regulating the <a href=\"\/visitation\/\">exploitive video visitation industry<\/a> has become an urgent concern.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nFor incarcerated people who rely upon the support of loved ones, and for the millions of children who need to connect with their parents behind bars, it is crucial that we continue to support common-sense legislation like the Video Visitation and Inmate Calling in Prisons Act of 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senator Tammy Duckworth recently introduced the Video Visitation and Inmate Calling in Prisons Act of 2017. This piece of legislation is an important step in the fight against exploitation in prisons and jails, and we encourage lawmakers, criminal justice professionals, and the general public to support its passing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[42],"class_list":["post-6205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6205"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6214,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6205\/revisions\/6214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6205"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}