from the per-minute-rates-for-a-captive-audience dept.
More jails replace in-person visits with awful video chat products
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¢ per minute in Newton County, 50¢ 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.
A previous story on Ars Technica noted "grainy and jerky" video quality that periodically froze up altogether.
Related: Company That Handles Prison Phone Calls is Surveilling People Who Aren't in Prison
Related Stories
More and more phone service for the imprisioned population is run through a single company. The ACLU writes that the company which handles prison phone calls, Securus, is also surveilling people who aren't in prison. This last week Senator Wyden (D-Oregon) described Securus' ability to obtain and share the cell phone location information of virtually anyone who uses a phone.
Real-time cell phone location tracking of a suspect requires a search warrant under federal law and, as some courts have held, the Fourth Amendment. Normally, when police want to track a suspect's cell phone in real time, they provide a warrant directly to the phone service provider, which reviews the warrant to confirm that it is valid before complying with the request. The major cellular service providers have law enforcement compliance teams comprised of trained staff who review warrants and other law enforcement requests and regularly reject or narrow requests that are improper or overbroad.
However, major phone carriers appear to have allowed Securus to bypass these procedures. Government investigators contracting with the company upload documentation justifying a request for cell phone location data to Securus' system. Securus, functioning as a middleman, pays other middlemen, who then pay major telecommunications carriers for the location information.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:18AM
But, they can't use their Members to make a Family. Otherwise known as the Conjugal. Not good!!!
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:37AM (2 children)
There have been huge issues keeping contraband out of prisons. The whole security situation is completely insane. Prisoners get cell phones! They have a very easy time getting drugs. They acquire materials to make weapons.
Proper security would start with better guards of course, with background checks that extend to family members. (do not hire a guard with a "clean" record who has criminals in his immediate family)
Then of course the criminals need to be kept away from most other people, particularly criminals. We in the US have prison rape jokes... but how is that even physically possible? It's a prison. Put them in separate stainless steel boxes.
Visitation has been a huge problem. Ditching it is one of the many steps needed for security. It's a start. We have a long way to go.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:11AM (1 child)
Long way to go... because... problem...
Hmmm... when do you think you'll get to the "keeping them in prison cost money, which is a huge problem. Killing them at the gate and asking the family for the bullet money is a start"?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:48PM
Private prisons would still charge over 40 grand a year to keep the body for the remainder of the sentence, but they could save a lot of guards, food and real estate ...
That's definitely the future!
What ? You think I'm cynical ? What do you think is next after you remove visits to people who got life-without-parole ? Facebook family data, grainy screens, and actors. Much higher profits !
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Subsentient on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:45AM (1 child)
Figures. Sometimes I'm deeply ashamed of my country. In the end, it distills to a far, far greater shame in my species.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:09AM
Do you guys not have smart phones?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:13AM
Anal probe insertion in 5, 4, 6, 3, 9, 2, 3again, 1, Entry. Thank you for using Virtual Prison Visit 2.0, obviously running on Windows10, brought to you by Teledildonics, Inc, a limited liability company that only contracts with "for profit" prisons and universities. See our job listings at, httpstd://www.teledildonics.com/orifice/entry/happy-ending ....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:52AM (10 children)
Surely it costs more to have people visit the prison.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:25AM
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:57PM (7 children)
One would think they would be able to save a lot of money in the transfer from physical visits to screen-visits, no (or less) guards that have to do security checks on the visitors and inmates. Smuggling of contraband should take a nose dive, it's just so hard to hand over physical items via the screen. Also you can store all the meetings forever, probably on some poorly secured cloud server somewhere.
That said I do wonder what the interaction does for the people involved. Even if you can't touch just being near or next to another human being is quite different from just seeing one a screen. It's not really the same experience or connection.
Also the prices, yickes! We are talking international phone call fee levels here to make a prison call (video or not). For 50c a minute I could call someone in Thailand, which is oddly enough just about half the costs of actually calling to the USA.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:18PM (3 children)
I meant that the cost of internet access for multiple video calls is nothing compared to the cost of paying guards to vet and escort visitors.
Why charge when using the internet from home is better from all parties?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Freeman on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:21PM (2 children)
Prisons have a history of charging exorbitant prices for calls. Why should video calls be any different? Other than that pesky part about not being able to see someone in person, for free.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:52PM (1 child)
You could have saved your keyboard:
"because they can"
alternative:
"because money"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:33AM
Yeah! Because those keystrokes (and the bits associated with them) are so dear.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:41PM (1 child)
No, not really. [prisonpolicy.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:15PM
That site mentions "children’s right to see their parents in person".
Uh... exposing a child to criminals is child abuse. Children have a right to be abused???
One of the big problems with off-site video visits is that it is difficult to keep children from seeing the video or being seen on the video.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:25PM
Because niggaz got lots of drug money, and need to share it with they prison wardens.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:40PM
These people are still visiting the jail directly, they are lead into a room with an ATM-sized terminal which handles the video visit.