The ability of an incarcerated population to communicate with family outside their detention facility and the cost of doing so has been an area of special concern nationwide. Recently, the Board of Supervisors requested an update from the Yolo County Sheriff's Office (YCSO) as to their inmate visitation policies and how these policies may change in the future due to recent legislation and our expanding detention centers.
Current Procedure for Visitation
Keeping the incarcerated population in touch with their families not only improves behavior inside the facility, but it also reduces the likelihood of recidivism. An intact family relationship throughout a sentence increases the chance of a support system available to the inmate when he or she is released back into the general population and adjusting to life outside the detention facility. Therefore, visitation is not only advantageous to the inmate, it is beneficial to the detention facility and the community.
Currently, all visitation at the Monroe Detention Center is conducted between the inmate and the visitor through a pane of glass (“through the glass”) with the use of telephone handsets for communication. Each inmate is allowed two half hour visits per week with an individual visitor over the age of 18, which meets Title 15 standards. Family visitation occurs on Sundays and is to allow an inmate's children, younger siblings, or grandchildren under the age of 18 to visit, accompanied by one parent or guardian.
Visits are conducted on an appointment only basis with the responsibility of scheduling the visit falling on the visitor. Previously, appointments were scheduled on Monday mornings only, however this has expanded to Monday through the Saturday before the scheduled visit. In the future, we will also be able to allow for convenient online scheduling of visits through new Jail Management Software.
Pros and Cons of State and Nationwide Trends
A 2017 estimate from The Prison Policy Initiative states that 600 detention facilities in 46 states are now using a form of video or webcam to replace in person (“contact”) and through the glass visitations, with the trending prevalence in county jails. Locally, counties such as Solano ended all contact and through the glass visitations in 2014 and replaced them with on-site and remote video visitations. The benefits of video visitations are many:
- Elimination of the possibility to transmit contraband into the detention facility, increasing officer safety
- Eliminates the need for detention staff to manually manage visitation schedules and move inmates from housing to visiting locations, which increases officer safety and allows for the resource reallocation of staff time to other duties
- Eliminates the need for a family member to travel long distances to visit an inmate
- Eliminates the restrictiveness of available visiting hours making it easier for the working population and children to visit, and some children may find a remote video visit less disruptive
- Provides the Inmate Welfare Fund with another revenue source, allowing the detention facility to increase the number of inmate programs that are funded.
However, there are also concerns to video visitation:
- The technology is limited to those individuals that have access to a computer with a webcam and necessary bandwidth, and the people most likely to use the remote video visitation are the least likely to have access to these things
- The cost of video visitation can be expensive, while the families of incarcerated people are more likely to be financially challenged
- End users of video visitation often find the visits impersonal as the placement of cameras, screens and chairs do not allow for direct eye contact when using the service. Privacy during visits can also be compromised. This can lead to a reduction in the number of visits an inmate receives, as the family feels the service isn’t worth the cost or trouble to use. Professional, i.e. legal, visits can be challenging to conduct over video visitation
- The technology can be susceptible to freezing of images and other glitches
Changes in Law for Visitations/Opportunities for the Yolo County Detention Center Expansion
The original plans for the expansion of the Yolo County detention centers included an updated and expanded visiting area; including the creation of new video visitation kiosks as part of a switch from the current through the glass visitation to an all video visitation policy. As part of the 2017 state budget, Governor Brown signed SB 1157, preventing state agencies from banning through the glass visitation in favor of all video visitation, with some agencies that have already moved to an all video visitation policy being allowed to continue their policy under a grandfather clause. Counties will not be allowed to charge a fee for the first hour of video visitation, and will not be allowed to charge at all if the video visitation takes place at the detention facility.
In response to this legislation, the YSCO updated the expansion plans by creating a building addition to supplement the planned video visitation kiosks. In this addition will be three separate rooms: two rooms will be for through the glass visitations, one with five stations and one with 3 stations each. The stations will have privacy partitions between seats. The third room will be used for visiting attorneys and will contain a paper pass through slot. This building addition was found to be the best way to address the legislation parameters for video visitations, eliminate construction delays or further redesigns, and still keep citizen visitors out of the secure part of the jail. A 2015 study found that inmate visits in Travis County, Texas, were higher once a combination of through the glass and video visitations were offered in comparison to video only visitations. If keeping family connections intact throughout incarceration is the goal, offering multiple alternatives for communication is the best strategy.
While we are unable to address the cost of remote video visitations until an Request for Proposals (RFP) for inmate communications occurs, we are confident that this plan, incorporated with the legislation requirements, addresses the other concerns expressed regarding inmate visitations not being convenient or family friendly. Being a late adopter of this technology puts Yolo County at an advantage of having newer, better functioning equipment than other facilities that are using equipment that was installed almost five years ago. Through the RFP we can ensure that any issues with the quality of imaging and sound as well as camera placement will be corrected. Board of Supervisor input can also be incorporated into the RFP. |