a Prison Policy Initiative report by Bernadette Rabuy and Peter Wagner
January 13, 2015
Video technology like Skype or FaceTime can be a great way to stay together for people who are far apart. It is not the same as being there in person, but it is better than a phone call or sending a letter.
Given that there are 2.2 million people who are incarcerated, often many hundreds of miles from their homes, it should be no surprise that prison and jail video visitation is quietly sweeping the nation.
But video visitation is not like Skype or FaceTime. For one, these well-known technologies are a high-quality, free supplement to time spent together, in-person. The video visitation that is sweeping through U.S. jails is almost the exact opposite.
In order to stimulate demand for their low-quality product, jails and video visitation companies work together to shut down the traditional in-person visitation rooms and instead require families to pay up to $1.50 per minute for visits via computer screen.
In this report, we collect the contracts and the experiences of the facilities, the families, and the companies. We:
Finally, we make 23 recommendations for federal and state regulators, legislators, correctional facilities, and the video visitation companies on how they could ensure that video visitation brings families together and makes our communities stronger instead of weaker.
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