Street Roots • January 23-29, 2015
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appointed officials. When he signed the
contract, he surrendered the county’s
authority to place limits on an inmate’s
visitation. The contract requires each
terminal be available for use at least 80
hours each week and states that except for
instances of punishment, inmates cannot be
barred from using video visiting or limited
in their access to the terminals.
On Jan. 12, the Human Rights Defense
Center, a national prisoners’ rights group,
submitted a comment to the Federal
Communications Commission, citing
Multnomah County’s move to eliminate
in-person visits under the direction of
Securus as an example of why video
visitation needs to be regulated.
“Human contact in the form of in-person
visits has ap even more significant effect
than telephone calls, not only on recidivism
but on prisoner behavior, and cannot be
eliminated in the name of profit,” the center
states.
It’s well documented that interactions
with family and friends while incarcerated
reduce inmates’ likeliness of reoffending
after release. Denying a prisoner the
opportunity to see loved ones in the flesh
contradicts the prevalent philosophy in the
corrections industry that visitation is an
important part of rehabilitation. The
American Correctional Association, the
accreditation agency for U.S. correctional
facilities, has also emphasized the
importance of family visitation and does not
support charging for visits.
In4ts survey, PPI found video-visiting
will remain free, but this isn’t always the
case. According to PPI, in Lincoln County,
the only visiting option inmate families have
is paid, remote video visiting. In Multnomah
County, remote visits conducted offsite via a
computer are currently offered at an
introductory rate of $5 per 20-minute visit,
but the price is expected to increase once
installation is complete and video visits
become the only visiting option for people
other than attorneys, clergy and other
professionals.
Staton emphasizes that the jails’ current
in-person visitation is conducted: with a clear
plexiglass wall between visitor and inmate.
“There’s no in-person visits,” Staton says.
“There’s always a physical barrier there.”
PPI’s study indicates sheriffs usually
defend the transition from in-person,
through-glass visits to video visits as being
insignificant as both involve shatterproof
glass and talking on a phone. To families of
inmates, however, replacing the real, living
person on the other side of the glass with a
grainy computer image is a step too far.
PPI also found that unlike Skype or
FaceTime, video visitation systems -
including Securus’ - are unreliable, with
audio lags, pixilated images, screen freezes
and user complaints about paid-for minutes
lost due to glitches in the system. The study
attributes the failure of the prison-industry
to fix these problems with its technology to
the fact that it considers jails and prisons to
be its customers - not the people who pay
for the service and experience its
shortcomings.
According to PPI, friends and family of
inmates pay as much as $1.50 a minute for
systems have become standard practice,
video visits in some counties - and they’re
with the service available in more than 500
facilities nationwide.
Video visitation has some advantages.
Because inmates of state prisons are often
shipped long distances from where they live
after being convicted, it can serve as a
convenient alternative for family members
and friends of inmates who would otherwise
have to drive a significant distance to visit.
However, inmates of county jails, many of
whom are awaiting trial and have not yet
been convicted of any crime, often have
friends and family who live in close
proximity. While most state prisons have
kept in-person visiting available after
installing video visiting, 74 percent of county
jails banned in-person visits when video
visitation was adopted, according to PPI’s
study. Its authors also point out that on
average, only 40 percent of county jail
inmates nationally have been convicted of a
crime, and in most cases the crimes are
misdemeanor offenses.
In Multnomah County, video visits
conducted from the jail lobby are free, and
some of the poorest people in the country,
making them the least likely to have access
to computers with webcams and the
necessary bandwidth to conduct remote
visits. They are also disproportionately
people of color, both nationally and in
Oregon.
According to the Department of
Corrections’ latest inmate population
profile, racial minorities made up nearly 22
percent of Oregon’s total population, but 26
percent of its inmate population. The largest
overrepresentation is among African
Americans, who are six times more likely
than Caucasians to be incarcerated in
Oregon jails and prisons.
Multnomah County Sheriffs Office
spokesman Lt. Steven Alexander says
during startup testing of the county’s video
visiting system last week there were some
connectivity issues and bugs being worked
out
Staton says he hasn’t actually seen the
video visiting in use yet, although kiosks
have been in use in the county’s
Prison Policy Initiative
Bernadette Rabuy, policy and
communications associate at the Prison
Policy Initiative, and Peter Wagner,
attorney and executive director at Prison
Policy Initiative, authored the study
featured in this story, Prison Policy
Initiative is a non-partisan,
Massachusetts-based nonprofit founded
in 2001. Its mission is to challenge over
criminalization and mass incarceration
through research, advocacy and
organizing.
downtownpjail since May.
“I haven’t actually looked at it, but the
way it’s been presented to me over the last
couple years, through the process, is that
everything is very clear, concise; there’s no
delays,” Staton says. “It’s a much better
process than actually doing the video cams
through a computer setup, but now that this
has been brought to my attention, I actually
want to see that process in person now.”
While the Sheriff’s Office denied Street
Roots’ request to have a terminal in use
demonstrated before press time, it says it
will at a later date.
Alexander says, to his knowledge, no
formal complaints about system glitches
have been filed with his department. He
said his office has received positive feedback
from visitors about their ability to schedule
their visits and the expanded visiting hours
that are available’under video visiting. It*S~
available seven-days a w e e k w h e re a s
in-person visiting is only available two days a
week. While installation of the new system
is underway, in-person visiting is still
available.
The video visitation contract was not
Securus’ first deal with Multnomah County.
It’s been making millions off county inmates
for years by collecting fees on inmate phone
calls. Under the terms of its new contract
with the county, two additional out-of-state
corporations are also making money from
charges on inmate account deposits and -
debit cards given to inmates upon their
release. The debit cards hold any cash the
inmate had on his or her person at their
time of arrest, and they have five days to get
their cash off the card or it begins to incur
fees.
When courting jails and prisons, Securus
claims its service will reduce the amount of
contraband that gets inside a facility’s walls
and increase security and safety. PPI’s
research found there is no evidence to back
up these claims, and in some cases, facilities
have experienced the opposite result. PPI
cites a study conducted by Texas Criminal
Page 5
Justice Coalition; “Disciplinary cases for
possession of contraband in Travis County,
Texas, increased 54 percent after the county
completed its transition to video-only
visitation.” Additionally, video terminals are
often positioned right next to each other.
The public location of the visits has actually
increased tensions in some jails, leading to
fights among inmates, the study found.
Street Roots asked the Multnomah
County Sheriff’s Office what it thought
about the results of PPI’s study. Office
spokesman Alexander says the Sheriff’s
Office does not have time to review this
most recent study, but that it has -seen
previous studies that state the pros and
cons of video visiting. He says the sheriff
will review the system annually to see if
changes need to be made in order to make
the system better and more efficient, and he
will review the elimination of in-person
visiting, as well.
Under the terms of the contract, if the
contract between the county and Securus is
terminated within five years of the
beginning of its initial term, the county will
be on the hook for the $600,559 installation
of the video visiting system. While Securus
is currently picking up that tab in
expectation of future revenues through
visitation charges, Staton says if he decides
keeping in-person visits is best for inmates,
he is willing to have the county pay the
installation costs of the system.
Previous studies, as mentioned by
Alexander, have been conducted on the
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w ith
visiting should never serve as the only
option for visitation.
The U.S. Department of Justice released
a report on video visiting in December
stating, “Studies confirm that incarcerated
individuals have better outcomes when they
receive in-person visits from family
members and supportive community
members.” The DOJ says that while video
visiting can help to keep children in contact
with their parents, it has the greatest
benefits when it is used in addition to
in-person visits, not as a replacement.
A 2012 study from The Sentencing
Project focused on video visiting’s effect on
children of inmates. It concluded that the
benefit to children relied heavily on policies
surrounding its implementation, most
notably that it should not be cost-prohibitive
and should not replace contact visits.
•Additionally PPI’s study found, “Video
visitation can add to the already significant
trauma that children of incarcerated parents
face, especially for young children who are.
unfamiliar with the video technology.”
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