NCJ Number
181699
Journal
Corrections Technology and Management Volume: 4 Issue: 1 Dated: January/February 2000 Pages: 26-29
Date Published
2000
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Communications by computer and camera allow video visitation for inmates to be conducted without the visitor having to physically be with the inmate in prison; such a scheme is described for one Florida jail.
Abstract
Falkenburg Road Jail in Hillsborough County (Tampa) hosts video visitation in a gymnasium-sized room that is lined with two rows of library-like cubicles, each containing a computer monitor. Visitors step up to a reception desk, present identification, and are then logged in and passed through security doors to the video visitation room, where they find a seat at one of the many semi-private cubicles. In each three-sided cubicle is a computer screen with a cigarette-pack sized camera, mounted over the monitor. The camera transmits the visitor's image several hundred feet, where it appears on an identical screen in an identical cubicle mounted inside one of the inmate pods. A telephone receiver hangs in the cubicle for talking. Visits are for 1 hour. This system is not only safer than face-to-face visitation, but now the public never has to go into a locked-down, secured area, and inmates do not have to leave their living area. Further, video visitation has enabled the jail to increase visits by seven times.