Jesus H Christ I keep finding out more things about how much jails and the for-profit prison industry is fucking everyone inside over
- In Austin, the Travis County Commissioners Court voted in October 2012 to add video visitation as an ancillary service—something prisoners’ rights advocates are fine with as long as the rates are reasonable and the service is reliable. But in May 2013, Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton quietly eliminated in-person visitation. Defense attorneys and inmates sued in April, claiming that the jail and Securus were unlawfully recording privileged conversations between inmates and attorneys and leaking them to prosecutors. On top of that, Quong Charles says the lack of human interaction is worsening conditions.
I designed my first and only video visitation system in 2004. Back then, VoIP was in its infancy. Ours was intended to increase security; there was no pathway out of the prison so if you wanted a "video visit" with an inmate, you had to schlep down to the cell block anyway. We did it with a 256x128 Autopatch Epica, at the time, the largest ever built, bigger than the NYSE's. Fun fact: we had to buy two of them because the fire contractor decided to pressure test over the weekend and the only place it leaked was over our half-million-dollar switcher, which turned into a big purple aquarium. Less fun fact: it costs a prisoner a dollar a minute to call out anyway. Less fun fact: they're making 13 cents an hour anyway. Less fun fact: they can't call collect, which means to call you the money is coming from you, which you have to send Western Union, which they're getting a cut of anyway. And less fun fact: they're eliminating video visitation anyway. This is all that with some video visitation thrown in.
Because then the prisons wouldn't make money off of it. The prisons get kickbacks from the virtual service providers. Providing Skype would require Internet and devices to access the Internet, which would cost the prison money. If I recall correctly the video provider doesn't charge the prisons, only the prisoners. Moreover, if they contract with a provider, maintenance and equipment become the providers responsibility and not the prisons, which makes it easier for the prisons.