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| Kiosk Offers High-Tech Way to Visit Jail |
| By miamiherald.com |
| Published: 07/06/2009 |
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Kiosk offers high-tech way to visit mom in jail A Miami company has invented an ATM-like device that lets loved-ones virtually visit the incarcerated. Florida's prisons aren't into it yet. From Miami Herald Staff and Wire Reports Almost every Saturday at 9:30 a.m. Candace McCann sits down for a face-to-face meeting with her daughter. Sometimes 7-year-old Kashmir draws a picture. Other times she stands on a chair to model an outfit: jeans and a Hannah Montana T-shirt or new shoes. Lately she's been opening her mouth, showing off lost teeth. ''I feel like I'm at home, kind of,'' said McCann, 24. She's not home. She's in a medium-security Indiana prison, where she is serving almost three years for theft and forgery. But McCann and her daughter are able to get together -- strengthening the family bond and, maybe, setting the stage for a smoother transition back to society -- thanks to some new technology marketed by a Miami company called JPay. The company makes ATM-like kiosks that enable prisoners to have video conferences with their loved ones who may be too far away for regular visits. Although the technology was invented by a Florida company, Florida prisons don't use it. Other prisons around the country offer video visits, but families generally have to go to a site like a church to use it. But at Indiana's Rockville Correctional Facility, once visitors are on an approved list, they can go online from home or elsewhere and schedule and pay for their own visits. Visits cost $12.50 for 30 minutes, less than the approximately $15 the prison charges for a 30-minute local call. The inmates benefit, but the institution does too, said Richard Brown, Rockville's assistant superintendent. ''When they [prisoners] have that contact with the outside family they actually behave better here at the facility,'' said Richard Brown, Rockville's assistant superintendent. And, of course, there's no chance inmates can get drugs or other contraband slipped to them. Not everyone has behaved during the video visits. In the past few months, a handful of inmates and family members have been banned from using the system for exposing themselves on camera. To prevent that, the prison watches all the visits either live -- like a security video -- or later, when the system archives them. If there's a problem, JPay can ban a family member or an inmate from the visits, though after the first offense inmates can get the privilege back in six months. Although the Rockville facility is the only one in Indiana currently using the system, all 28,000 Indiana inmates are expected to have access to it within the next four years. Likewise, all Kansas inmates -- just under 9,000 of them -- will be able to use it by next year. JPay covers the cost of the kiosks and their installation. The states pay nothing. LESS EXPENSIVE Prison officials say the virtual visits are less expensive and less time-consuming for families than driving to a faraway prison. Florida prisons have been looking into installing the technology for about a year, but the main drawback is cost, said Gretl Plessinger, Florida Department of Corrections Spokesperson. (Ryan Shapiro, chief executive officer of JPAY, insists the prisons bear very little cost. The Miami company provides and installs the equipment for free. All the prisons have to do is pay for an Internet connection, he said.) Plessinger said personal visits are preferred because ``direct contact with family members is most effective for reentry.'' Some Florida county jails, including ones operated by the Orange County Corrections Department, do offer video visitation, but not from home. Visitors have to make an appointment at a visitor center, usually across the street from the facility, to video chat with an inmate from a computer station there. Jails, as opposed to prisons, often don't offer in-person visits of any kind because of concerns that visitors will sneak in marijuana and other contraband. Security concerns of a different kind are the reason many jails don't plan on providing at-home video chats, said Allen Moore, Orange County corrections spokesman. He said the biggest fear is someone recording the chat, breaching the inmates' privacy. In Indiana, the kiosks are popular, and for multiple reasons. Read more. |
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