video call visit prison

Video Visitation

Video visitation is a great way to connect with your loved one over the internet, without having to worry about unpredictable crowds and overly busy visitation hours.

Visits can be scheduled and paid for in advance, allowing you to visit with inmates at times that are convenient for you.

We offer two types of Video Visitation services:

At-Home Video Visits

These video visits can be conducted at home on your PC computer, laptop or mobile device (Android).

Save travel expenses, time, long lines and parking fees with at-home video visits.

Ease stress on children who can now communicate without visiting the facility in person.

On-site Video Visits

On-site video visits are conducted at visitation stations at the facility.

With these visits, you are still required to travel to the facility.

Through our easy-to-use website, you can schedule, register, and pay for (if applicable) the visit in advance. Then, conduct the visit in real-time over the internet.

Please note: These services can vary by facility and are not available at all locations.

How It Works

• Check to see if your inmate’s facility offers video visitation.
• If video visitation is offered at the facility, go to www.gtlvisitme.com . Register yourself and all visitors participating in the visitations.
• Select the facility where your loved one is located.
• Search for your inmate, and add them.
• Click “Schedule” to begin the scheduling process.
• You will see the cost associated with your visit at the time of scheduling. Enter your credit card or debit card information to complete the scheduling process. You will receive a confirmation email and receipt for your visit.
• For at-home video visits : sign in to the visitation scheduling site 15 minutes prior to your scheduled visit. Test your connection, and follow the steps to start your visit.
• For on-site video visits: arrive at the facility at least 15 minutes prior to check-in. A valid photo ID is required. Each facility has its own rules for on-site visits. Please review rules prior to arrival.

For additional helpful information and a list of useful questions about visitation, scheduling, and facility policies, view our v isitation FAQs .

What It Costs

Visitation costs vary by correctional facility and visitation duration.

Different types of visits may have different costs or no cost at all.

All costs associated with visits are clearly displayed at the time of scheduling. Visitors are aware of all the options and can choose based on their visitation preferences.

Ways to Pay

When scheduling fee-based video visitations through our visitation website , you will be asked to provide your payment information to complete the scheduling process.

We accept debit cards, charge cards, and Visa/Mastercard gift cards.

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schedule a visit

Three Types of Video Visits

At Facility

These visits are when you go to your facility and sit at a video visit station in the lobby. Your loved one or friend will be on a video visit station in their pod.

From Computer

At select facilities families and friends can have video visits from their own personal computers in the comfort of their own homes. You will need the following equipment to do a video visit from home:

• A computer.
• A webcam and a microphone, or a computer with these components built in (most laptops have these built in).
• An internet browser. Internet browsers Safari 4 and higher, or Firefox 7 and higher, are strongly recommended. Using other browsers may not load the page appropriately in order to begin your visit. We are not responsible for technical problems or issues that may arise from using an unsupported browser.
• For the best visit experience you should use headphones, but they are not required.
• High speed internet (DSL or Cable) connection (dial up and satellite are not supported).

From Android Device

Video visits go mobile with our Visit Now Android app. At select facilities families and friends can have video visits from their own Android devices.

How to Schedule a Visit

Free video visit policy.

Free visits are a benefit for the inmate and are credited to the  inmate’s account. Therefore the inmate is the only one who  can book a free visit . This allows the inmate at your facility full control of whom they want to use their free visit with. There are also advanced scheduling rules that control the timeframe that a free visit can be booked. These rules vary by facility. If an inmate books a visit outside this timeframe, they will not be allowed to use a free visit.

• Book the visit with their Friends & Family.
• Suggest a visit with their Friends & Family. The Friends & Family must have no prepaid funds on their account at the time they confirm the suggested time. The inmate’s free visit will then be deducted.
• Confirm a suggested visit from their friends and family. The Friends & Family must have no prepaid funds on their account at the time the inmate confirms the visit. The inmate’s free visit will then be deducted from their free visit allowance.

The only way Friends & Family can use a free visit is by suggesting a visit with the inmate. If the inmate has a free visit available and there are no prepaid funds on the Friends & Family account at the time the inmate confirms, the free visit will be deducted from inmate’s account.

What Services Are Available At My Facility?

Select your facility below, available services:.

• Phone & Voicemail
• Video Visit at Facility
• Video Visit from Home

• Photo Sharing
• Tablets Your inmate has access to tablets. Make a deposit to their account so they have more ways to be productive, and you have more ways to stay connected.
• Verification Required

What is Telmate Verified?

If you are asked to be Telmate Verified it means your facility requires verification of your identity prior to acceptance of inmates' calls. The purpose of verification is to ensure inmates are not connecting with inappropriate people on the outside. The verification process is simple and can be completed before or after creating an account.

To be verified, you can make a deposit , schedule a visit or download and complete the Telmate Verified form .

Did you know…

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, inmates who

maintain strong relationships

with friends and family, greatly reduce their risk of recidivism.

Terms of Use governing use of GettingOut services state that all services are intended to be used by persons over the age of 18.

To continue, please enter your date of birth to confirm you are over the age of 18.

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Video Visits

The Department of Corrections (DOC) recognizes the need to engage families and friends in the reentry process, and visits help incarcerated individuals preserve healthy relationships. However, sometimes physical visits are impossible or inconvenient. Video visitation is a virtual way to talk face-to-face with an incarcerated friend or relative from the comfort of your own home, and it is available at all prison facilities .

Eligibility & Requirements

Conduct & monitoring, fees & scheduling.

Video visits are subject to the same policy and application processes as Prison Visits . To be eligible for a video visitation you must:

• Be on an incarcerated individual's approved visitor list
• You will need the individual's DOC Number to start an account.
• Ensure your first name, last name and date of birth match your legal identification.
• Do not include your middle name or middle initial.
• Have internet access*
• Have a personal computer that includes speakers, microphone, and a webcam*

*Per the video visit expectations (pdf) , visitors must provide their own equipment and the necessary internet connections to participate in video visiting.

If privacy screens are provided, they must be utilized and remain in place for the duration of the visit.

Regular visitation rules apply (see DOC 450.300 Visits for Incarcerated Individuals (pdf) , facility visitor guidelines , and video visit expectations (pdf) ).

A visitor who engages in prohibited conduct may be suspended or terminated from video visiting privileges. Regular visiting privileges may also be suspended/terminated. While a warning may be given as a courtesy for minor violations, warnings are not given to violations that are more significant than nuisance. Allowing an individual who is not an approved visitor to participate in video visiting is be grounds for suspension.

All video visits will be recorded, and designated employees will monitor video visits for compliance with policy and facility rules.

Video visits will be scheduled by the approved visitor through Securus at least 24 hours in advance. Visits will be scheduled in 30 minute increments. Video visits will be scheduled on a first come, first served basis.

Additionally, please keep in mind:

• Incarcerated individuals will not be excused from work or programming to participate in video visits.
• Incarcerated individuals are responsible for requesting visit times that will not conflict with their schedule.
• Video visit hours are determined by each prison facility. See a facility's visitor guidelines for video visiting hours.

See Video Visitation for fees.

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Securus Video Connect ®

• Communication
• ® "> Securus Video Connect ®

Discover interactive communication unlike any other.

Securus Video Connect ®  system is a fully web-based visual communication tool that allows friends, family members, attorneys and public officials to schedule and participate in video sessions with an incarcerated individual from anywhere with internet access using a smartphone, tablet or PC. This digital tool provides family and friends limitless opportunities to connect with a loved one by sharing special moments. No other form of communication allows incarcerated individuals to experience family life inside their homes. With the power of video, they can participate in birthdays, homework, watching cartoons with their kids and opening presents on Christmas. Studies reveal a link between individuals maintaining relationships with their loved ones while incarcerated reduces recidivism. Securus Video Connect SM  gives incarcerated individuals another opportunity to bond with their families to compliment traditional in-person visits.

Explore the Most Robust Scheduling Software Available to Corrections

Securus Video Connect ®  offers you an easy-to-use interface, which allows contacts to easily schedule sessions from any mobile device or PC connected to the internet. Before being able to schedule a session, the user must first electronically submit user information and a photo ID. Now, your staff will have full control over who is allowed to schedule a session giving you the ability to restrict users based on behavioral issues. In addition, the scheduling platform is completely integrated with your Jail Management System ensuring that a session is only scheduled during available timeslots.

Get the Power to Increase Security and Improve Lives

• Ability to live monitor and record visits for investigation and reducing violence within the facility
• Flag visits for later investigative review and lock down recordings from being purged after the standard retention window expires.
• Provides ability to have more video sessions at times that are more convenient
• Allows more family members to be involved in the video session
• Monthly subscription plans available for affordability and accessibility (at participating sites)

Latest News

Giving Incarcerated Individuals Access to Second-Chance Job Opportunities, Securus Technologies Partners with Honest Jobs February 15, 2023

New Securus Originals’ Podcast Inspires Incarcerated Individuals to Focus on Building a Second Chance Beginning Day One of Incarceration December 1, 2022

Securus Technologies and Grammy-Award Winning Artist Lecrae Release Song in First-Ever Hip-Hop Track Contest for Incarcerated Individuals August 31, 2022

Aventiv Technologies Launches New Website Dedicated to Providing Information, Resources, and Support to Families and Friends of Incarcerated Individuals August 23, 2022

NCIC provides Correctional Services and supports the efforts of Law Enforcement.

If you missed a call or notification from NCIC it means someone was trying to contact you from one of the facilities we service. To receive calls, video visits, and messages you will need to add funds to your account.

Mailing Address

Secure Video Visits

Secure Messaging

Correctional Staff

Video Visitation

Provide the Opportunity for On-Premise or Remote Video Visitation

The GTL VisitMe video visitation solution allows federal, state, county, municipal, and private facilities to supplement traditional in-person visitation service offerings with secure on-premise or remote alternatives. This highly scalable solution can help facilities of any size improve security while allowing staff time to be reallocated to more critical tasks. In addition, friends, family, and professional visitors are given a convenient, accessible way to stay connected with inmates.

With the on-premise solution available through VisitMe, visitation services can be conducted at predetermined locations within the immediate facility or at an established annex location. Inmate visitation stations can be installed at specific locations throughout each housing unit so that inmates do not need to be moved. A visitation station can also be set up on a cart as a mobile solution for restricted classification offenders.

Utilizing the At-Home video visitation solution through VisitMe allows visitors to conduct their regular visitation sessions through most PCs, laptops, and tablets (Android or Apple iOS devices) without stepping onto facility property. As these visitation sessions are conducted in an outside environment, correctional staff members are provided with several monitoring tools to prohibit any illicit activity.

Minimize Inmate Movements

With the implementation of the GTL VisitMe solution, visitation units are installed in strategic locations throughout each housing unit, reducing the need to coordinate inmate movements throughout the facility. With the reduction of inmate movements, the threat of a safety and security breach will be drastically reduced so that staff can be reassigned to other duties.

Securely Monitor and Record Visits

With the security features built into the GTL VisitMe system, correctional officers monitoring the visitation sessions have the capability to record, interrupt, or terminate any visitation for lewd or inappropriate conduct as determined by the facility. For visitation sessions that are classified as professional visits, the system will automatically disable the recording feature, keeping the facility within legal compliance.

Eliminate Contraband Introduction Opportunities

As individuals pass through the lobby of the correctional facility on a daily basis, the threat of contraband being introduced remains a reality. Even without the availability of contact visits, contraband can be placed in an area often visited by inmates or employees. With the introduction of on-premise or at-home visitation, visitors will conduct each session from a secure area, removed from any point that may allow the introduction of contraband.

Related Products

Video Scheduling

VisitMe Scheduler can eliminate long queues in the visitation area by avoiding the chaos of having a high volume of concurrent visitors at the facility. In so doing, the system also minimizes staffing requirements.

Ameelio’s free video calling service for inmates goes live at first facilities

Ameelio , a nonprofit startup that intends to replace inmate-paid video calling in prisons with a free service, is making inroads against the companies that have dominated the space for decades. With nine facilities in Iowa up and running and talks progressing with dozens more ahead of a planned 2022 launch, the company may soon usher in a fundamental change in how incarcerated people access communication and education.

Founded less than two years ago , Ameelio had its sights set on the calling system from the start, but began by offering a web and mobile service to send letters to inmates, which ordinarily is a surprisingly difficult process.

“We maybe had 8,000 users when we spoke to you, and a few months later we launched our mobile app. Now we’re hosting something like 300,000 users, in every state and some territories,” said Uzoma Orchingwa, founder and CEO of the company. But while letter writing is a useful service, the team’s efforts have been focused on developing and testing the suite of digital products they hope to offer across the country starting next year.

By building their own tech stacks and shifting the resulting (much lower than market) costs away from inmates, Ameelio provides an enticing alternative to the totally outdated systems in most prisons today.

Many may not be aware that a handful of for-profit companies perform nearly all of the for-profit video-calling services used by the nation’s often for-profit prisons, which collect a share of this tainted revenue. Securus and Global Tel have provided calling services for a long time, and their business practices were described by former FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn as “the clearest, most glaring type of market failure I’ve ever seen as a regulator.”

Despite costing nearly nothing to provide, calls can cost inmates as much as a dollar a minute — extortionate 10 years ago but positively criminal today, when free video calling is a basic feature we all expect for free or a nominal charge. The deeply unpopular Securus is in the middle of a rebranding (to “Aventis”) and potentially a SPAC deal to reinvent itself and purge the past, following the example of Facebook and Blackwater. But the zebra can’t change its stripes, and all that.

Not only that, but customers — that is to say, the Departments of Corrections that contract with these businesses — are beginning to doubt the value of the services being provided. The pandemic resulted in a suspension of in-person visits and their temporary replacement with free video calls, and Ameelio’s CTO Gabriel Saruhashi said that many a DOC would prefer to keep it that way. The old, and rather unethical, method of charging inmates and sharing the income is growing increasingly indefensible in the modern era, and they are more interested in keeping things simple.

Orchingwa explained that they’ve structured Ameelio as a turnkey system for whatever level of involvement a facility or department chooses. The cumbrous RFP system for selecting providers of state-paid services can be a barrier to adoption at scale, but Ameelio can be used as a basic replacement for free video calling platforms like Google Meet; in fact, Louisville Metro DOC has made the switch to free communications with Ameelio without any need for legislation, an important precedent to explore. Later on, if desired, the company can also provide the required and regulated scheduling, storage and security services for a fee.

This would come in far, far below quotes from existing providers. That’s because the entire problem has changed from being a telecoms problem to a tech problem, and “They aren’t tech companies,” Orchingwa said. “Their products haven’t changed in two decades.”

Instead, they buy companies to bolt onto their existing services or pay for off the shelf tech like Twilio. So in order to pay for the service in the first place, then provide the state its cut, and still come out ahead, they have to charge as much as the market will bear. And since the market consists of largely disenfranchised incarcerated folks and their families — not exactly the lobbying type — complaints can be written off more or less completely. The result is poor service at maximum price.

A prison video visitation service exposed private calls between inmates and their attorneys

“We don’t have that pressure,” said Orchingwa. “We’re a lean startup, and we do everything in house.”

“We leverage a lot of open source tech, which is part of why our costs are so low,” said Saruhashi. “They use Twilio, we use mediasoup; the only thing we’re paying for is servers. And we use Kubernetes, so our total cost right now is like $100 a month.”

They’ve also done their own hardware, standard Android tablets with custom enclosures that can very easily be provisioned and deployed anywhere there’s Wi-Fi. Facilities looking to replace landlines love that they can decommission a dozen phones and bring on five dozen tablets, through which both video and audio calls are possible. Video calls must be scheduled and recorded (by Ameelio or another), but audio can be done any time, and having one service and one device do both streamlines things.

The last area where Ameelio hopes to move things forward is in education. Currently there is a real hodgepodge of education systems available to inmates. Sometimes security requirements mean paper resources or homework must be physically brought and collected by a representative of the school (something we talked about at TC Sessions: Justice this summer ). Some places there is a virtual service, but only accessible at certain times, or with limited topics. As interesting as a course on English Literature might be, not every inmate is interested in completing their BA, possibly preferring to learn a trade.

The same tablets that provide audio and video calls — and of course other services like telehealth, official communications, text-based messaging and so on — would be the platform for education or simply reading. Orchingwa said there is great interest from both sides of the market (educators and DOCs, to say nothing of the inmates themselves, who have fought for this for decades), but that digitization has been a slow process.

“There are grants available, but no education platform,” he said. “The news is Ameelio is actually doing it, at two facilities and we just signed our first county. LinkedIn Learning, MasterClass, PBS, we’re uploading thousands of books from Gutenberg. We’re also trying to do job training; we identified CDL [commercial drivers license] training as being of interest, and we’ve been running that on the outside with about 50 formerly incarcerated students with computer literacy issues, using the app to study.”

Build products that improve the lives of inmates

It’s all still very much on the horizon, but it’s telling that in the short time since its founding Ameelio has already clawed away numerous facilities from industry incumbents that got their start in the ’80s. This is an industry ripe for change and there are plenty of stakeholders willing to try something new, even if it means rocking the boat a bit.

Although Ameelio does intend to fund itself by acting as the provider for commercial services states already pay for (recording and storing video calls) and by charging attorneys for secure, private calls instead of inmates or families, it will remain free to users. “Ameelio will always exist as a nonprofit. We are committed to never charging families to communicate with their loved ones and will always keep our services that face incarcerated people as nonprofit. We don’t believe that a for-profit model that relies on incarcerated people is justifiable,” Orchingwa said.

It does help to have a few deep-pocketed allies, though. Orchingwa mentioned Jack Dorsey, Vinod Khosla, Eric Schmidt, Brian Acton, Sarah and Rich Barton, Devin and Cindy Wenig, Kevin Ryan and Draper Richards Kaplan as those who are presently supporting Ameelio, and that True Ventures has awarded it grants as well. The company is working on a planned $25 million round to get them through the next few years as they establish their own income streams.

The idea that an incarcerated person could — and should — have a device that lets them communicate securely and even spontaneously with their loved ones and legal representation, as well as access educational resources and other services, seems like a fairly self-evident one. But the market, and the lobbying and industry that define it, have thwarted this path forward for a long time. Ameelio is just now building momentum but in a few years may be the provider of a free (as in beer, as in speech, perhaps even as in FOSS) platform that provides it for this perennially mistreated population.

Reimagining pathways for returning citizens with Jason Jones, Deepti Rohatgi, and Aly Tamboura

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City of Philadelphia

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How families and friends can have virtual visits with Philadelphia Department of Prisons inmates

This update is now reflected on the visit an incarcerated person service page .

This post was written by Shawn Hawes, Public Information Office, Philadelphia Department of Prisons

Information about in-person visits has changed.

Go to the visit an incarcerated person service page for the latest updates.

Although in-person visits are still not permitted due to the COVID-19 crisis, we are pleased to announce that on December 15, video visits will be an available option for Philadelphia Department of Prisons inmates and their family and friends.

Using the video visitation app,  Getting Out , these visits can be accessed on all devices including mobile phones.

• Inmates are permitted to add up to 5 email addresses to their video call list in addition to the 5 phone numbers they may have on their phone call list.
• Video visitation will provide each participant two, free fifteen-minute video calls each week.
• Beyond the two free weekly video visits, PDP inmates will also be able to purchase an additional 30 minutes of video call time.
• The cost is $.25 cents per minute, or $7.50 for 30 minutes per video call.
• They will only be charged for the minutes that are used.
• PDP inmates will continue to receive 15 minutes of free phone calls every day – an additional 5 minutes of calls were added for free, at the onset of the pandemic.  In February, we will return to the past practice of providing inmates with 10 minutes of free phone calls per day.

It is our hope that these calls will lessen the distance and uncertainty for both inmates and their loved ones during this time of crisis.

Related posts

Release procedures due to bail being posted during evening hours (10pm to 6am)

Philadelphia Department of Prisons’ attorney-client access procedures during COVID-19 (Archived)

How Philadelphia Department of Prisons is responding to COVID-19

• Visit a Person in Custody
• Visit Schedule
• Visit Transportation
• Visiting with Children
• Visitors' Dress Code
• Visitor Satisfaction Survey

Televisit Request Form

Notice: There is a known issue with the televisit software and iOS 15.1 on Apple iPhones. If you are running iOS 15.1, please upgrade to 15.2 or above prior to starting your visit.

Televisits are a new way for loved ones to connect to individuals in DOC custody.. To schedule a televisit, please complete the form below. Please be advised that although it is the Department's goal to provide a televisit to all those who request it, due to high demand and a limited number of devices, we expect that not every request will be initially satisfied.

Please note that a televisit is not scheduled until the visitor receives a confirmation email. If you do not receive a confirmation email within 24 hours of the last selected visit date, please submit another visitation form with different selected dates and times.

All visitors 18 years of age and older must present valid current identification that contains a photograph and signature.

A 16-year-old or 17-year-old with valid identification (such as a birth certificate) may accompany a child under the age of 16 if that 16-or 17-year-old is the parent of the child and the inmate being visited is also the parent of the same child. In this case, the 16- or 17-year-old must produce a birth certificate for the child under the age of 16.

* Indicates required fields

Visitor Information

Additional visitors and/or minor visitors.

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Life Has Moved to Zoom. Can Prison Visitation Do the Same?

Pennsylvania pilots a program to help incarcerated people connect with their families during the covid-19 pandemic..

On Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern, join Future Tense for  There’s No Social Distancing in Prison , a Social Distancing Social with Josie Duffy Rice and Lawrence Bartley.

For Robert Pezzeca, who is serving a life sentence in Pennsylvania, the introduction of Zoom as a means of video visitation meant he got to see his 22-year-old daughter for the third time in her life.

“I sat there for 45 mins watching my daughter eat dinner, laugh, smile, tell me stories, burp & I loved every second of it. Even when she started crying at the end,” he told me recently in a message.

For Heather Lavelle, also serving a life sentence in Pennsylvania, Zoom visitation has meant a temporary escape from prison lockdown—a short reprieve from the stresses inherent in weathering a pandemic in prison, where social distancing is difficult (and often impossible), information is sparse, and risk is high. When she visited with a friend from Florida, she said in a message, she loved being able to “interact in real time.”

“I saw his house and his dog, which I had never seen before. Much better than seeing a picture of his house or dog,” she wrote. “It was really special. It took me out of prison for a while, which meant a lot.”

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, prisons across the U.S. have suspended in-person visitation . This step, while necessary to limit the spread of the virus in an environment that amounts to a tinderbox for contagion, leaves incarcerated people even more distant from their friends and family members. Left in the widening gap between those on the inside and those who love them on the outside are fear, misinformation, and, often most painfully, silence.

In order to connect, incarcerated people and their family members have no option but to turn to phone calls, video calls, and electronic messaging—often made possible in prisons and jails via tablets and terminals from Global Tel Link and Securus , two companies that dominate the prison communication industry. But incarcerated people, their families, and advocates say that prices for these technologies are way out of line with what we pay on the outside, and quality leaves a lot to be desired. In a February 2019 report, the Prison Policy Initiative highlighted state by state the highest cost for a 15-minute call from a local jail, with staggering results: $21.97 in Wisconsin, $22.56 in Michigan, and $24.82 in Arkansas. In a survey late last year, the Marshall Project (disclosure: I used to work there) found that respondents spent an average of $63 per month video chatting with incarcerated loved ones. And in Pennsylvania, it costs $0.25 to send a 2,000-character email through a GTL messaging system. These are costs that add up when you consider that, according to a 2017 Prison Policy Initiative report , incarcerated people earn an average of between $0.14 and $1.41 per hour.

The high costs for these technologies are more devastating now, with people losing jobs both outside and within prisons. Advocacy groups including Color of Change , Worth Rises , and FAMM are demanding that prison and jail communication be made free “now and forever.”

Given all this, different prisons and jails—in conjunction with the private companies that provide their communication services—are looking into alternative ways to maintain connections. As Molly Minta reported for the Appeal , some have provided limited numbers of free or discounted phone calls, video calls, or emails. According to the UCLA School of Law COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project , 17 state prison systems have offered some sort of compensatory remote access to video visitation, and 34 have offered compensatory access to phone calls.

Among the alternatives offered, Pennsylvania’s program is unique. It allows incarcerated people to have up to one 45-minute video call per week using Zoom, depending on scheduling availability. Priscilla McCarthy Barolo, a communications manager for Zoom, said Pennsylvania was the only example the company knew of in which a prison or jail was using the software for family visitation. (The technology is being used elsewhere for legal visitation and court proceedings .)

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections used Zoom video calling for end-of-life and funeral visits, and the department was working on making the technology available for virtual church services. To conduct a video visit with an incarcerated person outside of those contexts, visitors had to schedule an appointment, physically travel to the closest PADOC facility, and then chat with their loved one via a kiosk. While the video calls themselves were free of charge, having to commute to a facility limited access and posed other costs for potential visitors.

Enter the pandemic and its suspension of in-person visitation, and expanding the use of Zoom to video calls with friends and family members was a “natural transition,” according to Deb Sahd, special assistant to Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections John Wetzel, in a written statement.

The Pennsylvania DOC began offering Zoom video visits on March 19. Visitors schedule their calls via email. At the time of the visit, the person on the outside connects to Zoom using a phone, tablet, or computer, and the person on the inside is brought to a station within their facility.

The new program has been met with enormous demand: Between March 19 and April 26, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections conducted 20,838 video visits via Zoom, according to the latest numbers released online. Such demand has led to a backlog in requests, which have come in at a much higher volume than those from the previous video visitation program—currently, the DOC is asking visitors to schedule visits “at least one month out” to give prison staff time to schedule and respond.

Scheduling delays aren’t the only hiccup with the new program. Lavelle hasn’t yet been able to visit with her 87-year-old father, she told me, because he and her stepmother don’t know how to download the app. “Nobody can go help them because everyone is sheltering in place! It frustrates them (causes anxiety) that there is a way to see me, but they can’t figure it out,” she wrote. For people on the inside, Lavelle said, it can be hard to explain to older loved ones how to use certain technology, because many have been incarcerated for long enough that they’re not familiar with the technology themselves. In addition, of Lavelle’s three scheduled visits, she said, two had connection problems. (In a written statement, the DOC’s Sahd said that some issues exist due to the volume of visits, “but large non-connectivity issues are not being reported.” The DOC will work to address any reported connectivity problems, Sahd said.)

Despite problems, Lavelle said, the Zoom visits provide a connection to outside world—something that gives her hope, particularly in the process of grieving her mother, who died on March 10.

“Not being able to see my family has added to my grief,” she wrote. “This helps.”

The Pennsylvania Prison Society , an advocacy and monitoring organization that dates back to 1787, has been helping with some of the technical and scheduling issues in the rollout of the Zoom program. Under normal circumstances, the society offers a transportation program , busing people around the state to visit incarcerated loved ones. With that on hold, it’s been helpful to offer an alternative to allow people to connect face to face with their loved ones, said Noelle Gambale, who’s been helping people troubleshoot Zoom visitation on behalf of the organization.

Different prison facilities’ varying capacities for video visitation are in part responsible for scheduling delays. In an in-person visitation room, you might be able to have 40 or more visits happening simultaneously, said Kirstin Cornnell, the social services director for the Pennsylvania Prison Society. Now, visits are limited by the number of video stations in the facility, not to mention staffing capacity to schedule visits and ensure incarcerated people can physically get to their calls, all while trying to maintain safe social distancing practices.

Thomas Greene, who is serving a life sentence, told me that in his facility, there are only three kiosks for more than 2,000 men. Greene said he’s had one “five-star” visit, but he’s also had three visits denied because of a lack of available time slots. “I have other Family who want to schedule a visit, but I have them waiting until I can get one with Mom and Dad first,” Greene told me in a message. “I really want to see them, and Mom can’t wait to show me all the changes in the house since I’ve been gone.”

One of the big questions with the Zoom visitation program, which has been positively received by users in Pennsylvania, is whether it’s a model that can be replicated in other prisons and jails, and whether it will continue to be offered after the pandemic is over. Video visitation is no substitute to in-person visitation, even though some corrections systems have used video calls to replace in-person meetings over the past few years. But the technology provides a good supplement for people who live far from their incarcerated loved ones, and a good potential alternative to the costly systems traditionally offered by companies like GTL and Securus.

“As an organization that advocates and encourages maintaining those family connections, we would undoubtably like to see this continued,” said Joshua Alvarez, prison monitoring director for the Pennsylvania Prison Society.

In a statement, Sahd said the DOC has shared its practices with other states and that the program “has been very successful” and “will be reviewed for continued utilization in the future.”

Pezzeca said he’s written to state legislators and prison administrators asking to make the Zoom visitation a permanent offering. For now, he is looking forward to another visit with his daughter, who lives in Ohio, and hopes to schedule a visit with an aunt and uncle in Italy.

“I’ve never seen my Italy family, this is my 1 chance,” Pezzeca wrote. “All prisons should do this.”

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate , New America , and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

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Video Calling Services vs. In-person Visitation

by Christopher Zoukis

Video calling* is gaining a significant foothold in local jails. The technology is seen both as less costly than in-person visitation and a potential profit generator for jailers. But it can also have a detrimental impact on prisoners’ ability to communicate with their families; nevertheless, for-profit companies are rolling out video calling services as fast as they can. [See: PLN , Nov. 2014, p.48; March 2014, p.50; Sept. 2012, p.42; Jan. 2010, p.22]

Often, when a jail contracts with a video calling provider, such as Securus Technologies, all in-person visitation is banned. [See: PLN , July 2013, p.44]. For example, in Maine’s Cheshire County and York County jails, as well as the Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset, in-person visits were banned after video calling services were implemented. Richard Van Winkler, superintendent of the Cheshire County jail, defended the move – which will earn his facility 20 cents of every $1 charged by Securus when prisoners’ families pay for video calls.

“When one violates the law and one has to serve time in a public institution, one of the liberties that one could lose is the opportunity to hug a loved one,” he said. “And you know what? That’s a difficult sanction. That’s hard time.”

According to a 2015 report from the Prison Policy Initiative, 13 percent of local jails – around 500 in 43 states – have implemented video calling, with 74 percent also banning in-person visitation. Costs to install the video system may be borne by the sheriff’s office, which then receives a portion of the fees paid by visitors who use the service.

Jail officials in Spartanburg County, South Carolina emphasized the benefits from eliminating the need to escort prisoners to in-person visits and monitor the visitation area. Before switching to video calling in March 2017, jail director Major Allen Freeman said such concerns made the prior visitation system “a logistical nightmare.”

But experts question whether prisoners should lose the ability to have in-person visits altogether. In a letter to the California Board of State and Community Corrections, a coalition comprised of the ACLU, Prison Law Office, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice said that in-person visits result in fewer disciplinary problems among prisoners and lower recidivism rates.

Some corrections officials agree that in-person visitation is a better option, at least with respect to prison discipline – in part because it’s a privilege that can be taken away as a sanction for misbehavior.

“When [prisoners] have that contact with the outside family, they actually behave better here at the facility,” said one Indiana prison official quoted in the Prison Policy Initiative report.

However, marketing pitches from companies like Securus to cash-strapped municipalities highlight cost savings and the potential to limit the introduction of contraband into jails. Those benefits may be illusory, though. In Travis County, Texas, a report published in October 2014 by the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition found that the amount of contraband actually increased after the introduction of video-only visitation. So did disciplinary problems and prisoner violence.

Some states are taking steps to curb the introduction of video calling. In Texas, a law passed in May 2015 requires county jails to offer prisoners two 20-minute, in-person visits per month. State Senator John Whitmire, the Houston Democrat who sponsored the bill, didn’t cite research linking in-person visitation with fewer problems and better outcomes for prisoners and their families. Instead he alluded to a moral imperative.

“I just think there’s something inherently wrong with not allowing a father to see his family or a mother to talk to her husband or son,” he said. “How do you keep an individual from seeing his family? As another human, how do you do that?”

Nationwide an estimated 2.7 million children have an incarcerated parent, but 5 million children will experience parental incarceration at some point during their childhood. [See: PLN , Feb. 2017, p.28]. African-American children are over seven times more likely than their white peers to have a parent in prison or jail, while Latino children are twice as likely.

“Visits are not a privilege or a reward for good behavior; they are a right,” asserted Tanya Krupat, program director at the Osborne Association, a New York-based non-profit that sponsors programs for children with incarcerated parents as part of its criminal justice reform efforts.

New York officials have insisted they view video calling as a way to supplement in-person visits, not replace them. Governor Andrew Cuomo recently restricted in-person visitation at state prisons to weekends, but a spokesman noted that the cost savings will allow for expanded video calling while also preserving the most popular times for families to visit, especially those that have to travel long distances.

Yet with research indicating that maintaining contact helps both children and their incarcerated parents – the child fares better during the parent’s absence and the parent enjoys a smoother re-entry to the community after release – other public officials want to encourage and expand in-person contact.

In New York, the Proximity Bill, introduced in March 2016, would create a pilot program requiring the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to take proximity to family members into account when assigning prisoners to state facilities. The bill is sponsored by state Senator Gustavo Rivera, a member of the Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee, who was influenced by children he encountered through the Osborne Association.

“Children tell us all the time: Nothing replaces that quality in-person time,” said Krupat.

The Pennington County jail in Rapid City, South Dakota is one place where the introduction of video calling earlier this year was accompanied by an increase in the availability of in-person visitation.

“Anytime an inmate can be involved with his family, can spend time with them ... it improves their behavior in the facility,” explained Jail Captain Brooke Haga.

Back in Maine, the Somerset County jail was able to contract for video calling services from Securus without foregoing in-person visitation. But the overall trend points to increased video calling access and decreased in-person visits for prisoners.

California has gone further than Texas in limiting the use of video-only visitation in county jails. The Board of State and Community Corrections voted in February 2017 in favor of requiring future county jails to include space for in-person visits; the new regulation also prohibits sheriffs from adopting any policy that bans in-person visitation. Board chairwoman Linda Penner cited the growth of video calling as the basis for the rule.

“The use of video has become more widespread,” she said. “The regulation today really draws a line in the sand.”

But state Senator Nancy Skinner said the new regulations don’t go far enough.

“Why ... would we create a circumstance where [prisoners’] families cannot visit them?” she asked, adding that “video visitation is not the same as a family visit.”

U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, agreed. While serving in the House last year she introduced H.R. 6441, the Video Visitation in Prisons Act, which would require the Federal Communications Commission to ensure that correctional facilities with video calling services do not ban in-person visits. The legislation would also limit the fees for video calls and impose other restrictions. An online petition in support of the bill is available at: www.goo.gl/88Xhnf.

Prison Legal News supports the use of video calling at prisons and jails only if it is provided at no cost and is used to supplement, not replace, in-person visitation. 

* PLN refers to video visits as “video calling,” as they are not comparable to in-person visitation and are more like a video phone call.

Sources: Associated Press, www.sfgate.com, https://bangordailynews.com, www.nytimes.com, www.npr.org, www.prisonpolicy.org, www.villagevoice.com, www.goupstate.com, www.listen.sdpb.org

More from this issue:

• PLN Interviews CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou
• Washington Sex Offender Records Not Exempt from PRA Disclosure
• Vermont Supreme Court Adopts Prison “Mailbox Rule”
• PLN Files Censorship Suit Against Cook County, Illinois
• Ninth Circuit: “Debatable” Constitutionality Requires Qualified Immunity
• Fourth Circuit Reinstates Prisoner’s Lawsuit Over Coerced Penis Surgery , by Lonnie Burton
• Despite Past Problems, Prison Privatization in Ohio May Expand , by Lonnie Burton
• BOP Potentially Liable for Valley Fever Outbreak at Privately-run California Prison , by Lonnie Burton
• Lawsuit Claims Ohio Jail Guards Raped, Tortured Female Prisoner
• GM Hides Defect that Killed 124 People, but No One Goes to Prison , by Joe Watson
• Fee Award in Arizona Prison Healthcare Suit Helps Fund Legal Services for Immigrant Detainees, ACLU , by Joe Watson
• California Pays for Transgender Prisoner’s Sex Reassignment Surgery , by Joe Watson
• ACLU Exposes Debtors’ Prisons Across New Hampshire , by Joe Watson
• Federal Dismissals Not In Forma Pauperis Strikes in Arkansas
• Michigan County Jail Loses Appeal on Legal Mail, Settles with ACLU , by Derek Gilna
• Innocence Project Blasts Lack of Consequences from Prosecutorial Misconduct , by Derek Gilna
• Connecticut DOC Settles Five Percenters Religious Rights Suit , by Derek Gilna
• $175,000 Settlement for BOP’s Deliberate Indifference to Mentally Ill Prisoner , by Derek Gilna
• Denial of Sex Offender Treatment Nets Disabled Utah Prisoner $60,000
• Ignorance, Bureaucracy and Red Tape: U.S. Citizens Mistakenly Deported , by Christopher Zoukis
• COA Not Required for Innocence Protection Act Appeals
• Texas City Settles Suit Over Jail Prisoner’s Death for $1.25 Million , by Matthew Clarke
• Settlement in Baltimore Prison Conditions Class-Action Suit
• NY State Prisoner Settles Case Over DOC’s Denial of Hepatitis C Treatment , by Derek Gilna
• New York: $67,000 Jury Award in Rikers Island Prisoner’s Suit
• Exonerated Illinois Prisoner Wins $22 Million Verdict Against City of Chicago , by Derek Gilna
• $155,000 Settlement in Lawsuit Over California Jail’s Censorship of PLN , by Matthew Clarke
• $50,000 Jury Award in South Carolina Prisoner’s Failure to Protect Suit
• $16,650,000 Settlement in D.C. Wrongful Conviction Suit , by Matthew Clarke
• Oregon: Muslim Prison Visitor Receives $40,000 for Discrimination, Retaliation
• Two Alabama State Court Judges Disciplined , by David Reutter
• Pennsylvania: Compassionate Release Reforms Fail to Achieve Aim , by David Reutter
• Site of Gruesome Prison Riot Becomes New Mexico Tourist Attraction , by Joe Watson
• Report Presents Bleak Analysis of BOP Medical Bureaucracy , by Derek Gilna
• Stock Prices for Private Prison Firms Surge After Trump Elected President , by Derek Gilna
• State Sentencing Reforms Doing Little to Reduce Nation’s Prison Population , by Lonnie Burton
• Work Release Programs Reduce Recidivism in Louisiana – At a Cost
• Arizona DOC Invites Attorneys to Provide Execution Drugs for Their Clients
• California Prisoners Provide Cheap Labor to Fight Dangerous Wildfires , by Joe Watson
• New Treatment Regimen for Latent TB Shows Promise
• Your Kid Goes to Jail, You Get the Bill , by Eli Hager
• 28 Days in Chains , by Christie Thompson and Joseph Shapiro
• News in Brief
• New York: Contraband Convictions Vacated After Guard Admits Planting Weapon
• HRDC Supports Lawsuit Against Jailing of Immigrant Children
• HRDC Condemns CoreCivic’s Rejection of Resolution for More Oversight
• From the Editor , by Paul Wright
• Another Florida Prisoner Death, Another Cover Up? , by David Reutter
• Yale Law School Report Examines Variations in Death Row Housing Units , by Derek Gilna
• Supreme Court Reverses Criminal Conviction for Racial Bias by Juror , by Derek Gilna
• “PrisonCloud” Provides Limited Internet Access to Belgian Prisoners , by Derek Gilna
• Video Calling Services vs. In-person Visitation , by Christopher Zoukis
• Report: How Private Prison Companies Exercise Influence Over Public Officials , by Christopher Zoukis
• Privately-run Montana Jail Remains Mostly Empty Since 2007 , by Christopher Zoukis
• Arkansas Judge Charged with Trading Leniency for Sexual Favors

More from Christopher Zoukis:

• The Contraband Wars Prison authorities target books and mail, miss the goods coming through the staff door , July 1, 2021
• Trump v. Biden on Criminal Justice , Oct. 1, 2020
• Coronavirus in Prison: The Cruel Reality , Aug. 1, 2020
• With Lives of Immigrant Detainees at Risk to COVID-19, Federal Judge Forces ICE’s Hand , July 1, 2020
• A Nation on the Brink , June 15, 2020
• Federal Court Slams Michigan Jail for Bungling COVID-19 Pandemic, Demands Names of Vulnerable Prisoners for Release , June 1, 2020
• Silence: The Bureau of Prisons’ Pathetic Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic , June 1, 2020
• New York Judge Orders Release of 18 Rikers Island Detainees Due to COVID-19 Risk , June 1, 2020
• Coronavirus: A Nationwide Survey of the Push for Early Release as Pandemic Fears Grow , May 1, 2020
• California Three-Judge Court Denies Emergency Motion to Reduce Prison Population During Pandemic , May 1, 2020

More from these topics:

• Report Finds Current Path of Florida Prison System “Unsustainable” , June 1, 2024. Commentary/Reviews , Cost of Prison Systems , Totality of Conditions .
• The Graying of American Prisons , May 1, 2024. Geriatric Classification , Crime/Demographics , Statistics/Trends , Census , Cost of Prison Systems .
• As ICE Data Errors Persist, GEO Group Cashes In , April 26, 2024. GEO Group/Wackenhut , Contractor Misconduct , Cost of Prison Systems , Immigration Law/Offenses , Detention - Generally .
• ‘Trail ’Em, Nail ’Em, and Jail ’Em’: Issues Private Probation and Parole , April 15, 2024. Sentinel , Contractor Misconduct , Reviews , Statistics/Trends , Cost of Prison Systems , Electronic Monitoring , Probation, Parole & Supervised Release .
• The Economist Calls for More Alternatives to Incarceration , Dec. 1, 2023. Cost of Prison Systems , Effects of Mass Incarceration .
• New York Adding Names to Tombstones of Dead Prisoners , Dec. 1, 2023. Visiting , Extended Family Visiting , Family .
• South Carolina Supreme Court Denies Prisoner’s Challenge to DOC Policy Restricting Visitors to People He Knew Before Incarceration , Nov. 15, 2023. Visiting , Video Visitation .
• The Lecturer at the Lockup: Maine Prisoner Is First to Teach College Courses from His Cell , Sept. 15, 2023. Education , Video Visitation .
• Five Years After Limiting Personal Visits and Banning Mail, Drug Use Worse in Pennsylvania Prisons , Sept. 15, 2023. War on Drugs , Mail Regulations , Visiting .
• Travis County, Texas, Efforts to Keep Mentally Ill Individuals Out of Jail Face Funding, Infrastructure, and Information Management Challenges , Sept. 1, 2023. Cost of Prison Systems , Mental Health , Failure to Treat (Mental Illness) .

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Video Visiting in Corrections: Benefits, Limitations, and Implementation Considerations

"The purpose of this guide is to inform the development of video visiting programs within a correctional setting. “Video visiting” is real-time interactive video communication which uses video conferencing technology or virtual software programs, such as Skype. It is an increasingly popular form of communication between separated family members in settings outside of corrections. The rapid expansion of video visiting in jails and prisons over the past few years suggests that video visiting may become very common in corrections in the near future. "This guide will help inform administrators about the benefits and challenges of using some common video visiting models across a variety of settings. Video visiting can be a positive enhancement to in-person visiting, and has the potential to promote positive outcomes for incarcerated individuals and their families and communities. In certain circumstances, video visiting may benefit corrections by reducing costs, improving safety and security, and allowing for more flexibility in designating visiting hours. The value of video visiting can be maximized when the goals of the facility are balanced with the needs of incarcerated individuals and their families" (p. vii). This guide is comprised of three chapters: why consider video visiting; implementation considerations; and evaluating a video visiting program. Appendixes cover: additional uses for video conferencing in corrections; video visiting with children; identifying a video visiting model; implementation checklist; and evaluation tools.

Virginia Department of Corrections expands video visitation at 2 facilities

S USSEX COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) has announced that it has expanded video visitation access at two facilities.

According to the department, inmates at Sussex I State Prison in Sussex County and Cold Springs Correctional Unit in Augusta County can now conduct visits with friends and family using video visitation equipment in their living areas.

Hours of operation for the general population at Cold Springs Correctional Unit are 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on weekends. Hours of operation for the general population at Sussex I State Prison will be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends.

Any previously scheduled visit outside of operating hours for video visitation will have to be rescheduled. If two inmates in the same living area have visits scheduled for the same time, one will be canceled and visitors will have to reschedule. Rescheduling a visit can be done here .

Video visitation will not be available when facilities are on lockdown status.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WAVY.com.

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Prisons and prisoners

Learn how to locate prisoners and get prison records. Find out how to send money or visit someone in prison. And learn the process for filing a complaint about a prison.

How to look up prisoners and prison records

You can search for prisoners and prison records based on when and where someone was incarcerated. Find out how to look up federal, state, or local prison records.

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If you know someone who is in prison, you may be able to support them by visiting or sending them money. Find out how to support someone in federal or state prison.

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You can file a complaint about a prison, policy, procedure, or abuse of someone in prison. Learn where to direct your complaint and what steps to take.

State departments of corrections

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Pamela Smart takes responsibility for her husband’s 1990 murder in prison video statement

Pamela Smart , the former high school employee serving a life sentence for recruiting a student she was having an affair with to kill her husband in 1990, accepted full responsibility for his death for the first time in another bid to reduce her sentence.

Smart, 56, who has been in prison for over 30 years, said she started to "dig deeper into my own responsibility" and was encouraged through a writing program to venture into "spaces that we didn’t want to be in."

"For me, that was really hard, because going into those places, in those spaces, is where I found myself responsible for something I desperately didn’t want to be responsible for, my husband’s murder," she said in a video statement released Tuesday.

"I had to acknowledge for the first time in my own mind and my own heart how responsible I was, because I had deflected blame all the time, I think, almost as if it was a coping mechanism, because the truth of being so responsible was very difficult for me," she continued.

Smart was a 22-year-old New Hampshire high school media coordinator when she began an affair with the student, William Flynn. She was convicted of conspiring with him to fatally shoot her husband, Gregory Smart, 24.

Flynn testified that Smart said she needed her husband to be killed because she feared losing everything in a divorce and that she threatened to break up with him if he did not commit the murder. Flynn and three other teenagers charged in the crime cooperated with prosecutors to receive shorter sentences. They have all been released.

The murder, one of the first high-profile cases to revolve around a sexual relationship between a school employee and a student, resulted in a trial that quickly became a media circus. The case inspired the 1995 movie "To Die For," starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix.

In a letter to New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, Smart acknowledged that she was "the one to blame" for Gregory Smart's "absence from this world." She asked for a conversation with him and New Hampshire’s five-member Executive Council, which approves state contracts and appointees to the courts and state agencies.

Smart has exhausted all of her judicial appeal options and has to go through the council for any changes to her sentence. The council rejected her last request, in 2022, and she appealed to the state Supreme Court, but it was dismissed last year.

Sununu’s office said Smart will be given the same opportunity to petition the council as anyone else. Councilor Joseph Kenney told The Associated Press that he would look into her petition but said it's "not on my radar screen as of yet."

Val Fryatt, Gregory Smart’s cousin, told the AP that he believes Pamela Smart's videotape statement "danced around" her actions and failed to admit the "facts around what made her ‘fully responsible.’”

Minyvonne Burke is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News.

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Wisconsin warden and 8 staff members charged following probes into inmate deaths

The warden of a maximum-security Wisconsin prison and eight members of his staff have been charged following investigations into the deaths of four inmates at the troubled facility over the past year.

Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt talks about investigations into four inmate deaths that occurred at Waupun Correctional Institution during a news conference Wednesday, June 5, 2024, in Juneau, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

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The Waupun Correctional Institution is seen Wednesday, June 5, 2024, in Waupan, Wis. Waupun Correctional Institution Warden Randall Hepp was jailed Wednesday hours before a scheduled news conference where officials planned to discuss the findings of investigations into multiple deaths at the facility. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

This booking photo provided by the Dodge County, Wis., Sheriff’s Office shows Randall Hepp, Wednesday, June 5, 2024. Hepp, warden of a maximum-security Wisconsin prison, and eight members of his staff were charged Wednesday following investigations into the deaths of four inmates over the past year, including one that wasn’t discovered until at least 12 hours after the man died. (Dodge County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

The Waupun Correctional Institution is seen Wednesday, June 5, 2024, in Waupan, Wis. Waupun Correctional Institution Warden Randall Hepp was jailed Wednesday hours before a scheduled news conference where officials planned to discuss the findings of investigations into multiple deaths at the facility.(AP Photo/Morry Gash)

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Guards at Wisconsin’s oldest maximum-security prison failed to provide basic care for inmates who died on their watch, including one who died of dehydration and another who wasn’t found for at least 12 hours after he died of a stroke, authorities said Wednesday in announcing charges against the warden and eight members of his staff.

Waupun Correctional Institution’s warden, Randall Hepp, is charged with misconduct in public office. The other eight face charges of felony inmate abuse. Three of them are also charged with misconduct.

“We are operating the oldest prison in the state of Wisconsin in a dangerous and reckless manner,” Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt, who led the investigation, said at a news conference announcing the charges.

Hepp faces up to 3 1/2 years in prison if he’s convicted. He announced last week that he planned to retire at the end of June. He said in an email to Waupun staff that he had helped improve “safety and order” at the prison.

Hepp’s attorney, Robert Webb, declined to comment.

Three of the four deaths are subject to federal lawsuits. The state Department of Corrections is investigating the prison’s operations, and the governor last year asked the U.S. Department of Justice to look into contraband smuggling at the facility.

Department of Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy said in a statement that more than 20 people remain under internal investigation, at least eight are on leave and nine others were fired or have retired since the probe began a year ago. Hoy asked the sheriff to keep his probe open and share all of his findings. Schmidt said he could reopen the investigation if the internal probe reveals additional evidence.

The first of the four inmates who died, Dean Hoffman, killed himself in solitary confinement last June. Hoffman’s daughter filed a federal lawsuit in February alleging that prison officials failed to provide her father with adequate mental health care and medications.

Tyshun Lemons and Cameron Williams were both found dead at the facility in October. Dodge County Medical Examiner PJ Schoebel said Lemons overdosed on acetyl fentanyl, a potent opioid painkiller, and Williams died of a stroke.

Donald Maier was found dead at the prison in February. Schmidt said his death was ruled a homicide due to malnutrition and dehydration.

All of the charges are related to the deaths of Williams and Maier.

Williams told an inmate advocate three days before he died that he needed to go to the hospital but no action was taken, according to a criminal complaint. He had fallen in the shower and had to crawl into his cell two days earlier, and a day before that he collapsed on the way back to his cell, but neither fall was documented, the complaint said.

He died of a stroke sometime on Oct. 29, but his body wasn’t discovered until late the next morning, at least 12 hours after he died, according to the complaint. The nurse, sergeant and lieutenant charged in his death never checked on him that night, the complaint said.

Maier had severe mental health problems but he either refused or wasn’t given his medication in the eight days leading up to his death, according to a separate complaint.

An inmate told investigators that Maier flooded his cell, resulting in guards turning off his water. Six days before he died, he told a staff member that he “wants water, water, water, all the water in the world” and acted like he was swimming around his cell. Guards also saw him drinking from his toilet, the complaint said.

Guards said they turned the water off and on for Maier, but investigators said no one ever told him when it was on, according to the complaint. Guards also didn’t bring him any food in the four days leading up to his death, the complaint said.

Asked if his employees understand the prison’s water shut-off policy, Hepp told them that policies go out via email but he doesn’t think anybody at any institution really reads them and that no jail in the United States documents inmates’ every meal.

Attorney Mark Hazelbaker is representing Gwendolyn Vick, a nurse charged with abuse in connection with Williams’ death. According to the complaint, a nurse from an earlier shift told her that Williams was laying on the floor of his cell but she never checked on him. She told investigators that she told the guards that she wasn’t sure it was necessary to enter his cell because Williams was always trying to get a hospital trip, the complaint said.

Hazelbaker said Vick is “very sad” that four people died at the prison but she wasn’t responsible for anybody’s death. She’s entitled to be heard on the issues involved in providing prison health care, he said, adding that the real incompetence lies with the Department of Corrections in failing to properly staff and replace the aging prison.

Waupun had a 43% staff vacancy rate at the end of May, according to agency data.

“I can’t stress enough that this is a system failure of massive proportions,” Hazelbaker said. “It is dangerous. People don’t want to work there.”

Waupun’s problems extend beyond the inmate deaths. Gov. Tony Evers’ office said in March that federal investigators were looking into a suspected smuggling ring involving prison employees.

Evers said Wednesday in reaction to the charges being filed that everyone who failed to do their job will be held accountable.

Republican legislators renewed their calls Wednesday for Evers to close the prison in Waupun as well as another maximum-security prison in Green Bay. Both prisons were built in the 1800s.

“Tony Evers can’t keep his head in the sand anymore,” said state Sen. Van Wanggaard, chairperson of the Senate committee that oversees state prisons.

‘Vote against jail’: How two Modi critics won India election from prison

In Kashmir and Punjab, candidates jailed for being alleged national security threats have won. What does that say?

New Delhi, India – On the afternoon of June 4, a crowd of several hundred young men gathered in front of a two-storey house in Mawar village, with a clear view of the Pir Panjal mountains in the background, in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Kupwara district.

Some of those in the crowd raised a man over their shoulders who shouted, “Tihar ka jawab [the answer to Tihar jail]”, to which the crowd replied, “Vote se [the vote],” as women peeked through windows and children scaled the brick boundary wall around the house for a glimpse of the action.

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The crowd was celebrating the victory of jailed engineer-turned-politician Abdul Rashid Sheikh, also known as “Engineer Rashid,” who won the Baramulla seat in Kashmir, securing nearly half a million votes. He defeated candidates from both major pro-India political parties in the disputed region – former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah of the National Conference, and Sajjad Gani Lone, a separatist turned mainstream politician from the Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference.

An independent candidate beating opponents from major parties is rare enough – only seven of the 543 candidates elected winners in India’s just-concluded national vote ran as independents.  But Rashid did something ever rarer: he contested and won from Delhi’s Tihar jail, which is approximately 850km (528 miles) away.

The 58-year-old politician was arrested after New Delhi scrapped Kashmir’s special status and statehood on August 5, 2019. He faces charges of “terror funding” under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, an anti-terror law declared “draconian” by several rights groups. India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) charged Rashid in March 2022 with allegedly instigating Jammu and Kashmir police personnel against the Indian Army. He was also accused of receiving funds from Pakistan. He has denied the charges.

Rashid is not alone.

Some 485km (300 miles) away in Khadoor Sahib in the northwestern state of Punjab, voters elected 31-year-old Amritpal Singh, who has advocated for a separate Sikh homeland, to parliament.

Singh, like Rashid, contested from jail – in his case, a high-security prison in Assam, in the northeast corner of India. Singh, who is facing 12 criminal charges, was arrested by the Punjab police in April 2023 and charged under the National Security Act (NSA), which allows those considered a threat to national security to be detained without charge for up to a year. On June 4, as the results of India’s election were announced, Singh won by 400,000 votes.

The shock wins for Rashid and Singh represent a sharp message to mainstream Indian opposition parties, even as they suggest that people’s trust in the institutions of the Indian state has taken a hit in Punjab and Indian-administered Kashmir, regions that have witnessed anger against the ruling government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, say analysts.

“The space for mainstream parties is crucial. They serve as a bridge to national integration,” said Asim Ali, a political commentator. But in both Baramulla and Khadoor Sahib, voters concluded that these parties – many of which had been past alliance partners of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party – were not trustworthy, he said. “People do not regard them as autonomous parties or credible choices. So, if there is no legitimate alternative in democracy, persons on the fringes gain political space,” Ali said.

Vote as revenge for jail term

India has long considered a rebellion against New Delhi’s rule in Indian-administered Kashmir as a form of terrorism and has deployed millions of its soldiers in the region for decades. New Delhi claims the region as an integral part of the country.

Rashid worked as a construction engineer before he quit his job in 2008 and joined politics, winning that year’s assembly elections from the Langate seat in his hometown as an independent candidate and again in 2014, as a candidate of Awami Ittehad Party, which he formed a year earlier.

Regarded by his supporters as a “common man” who leads a low-profile life, Rashid has routinely demanded accountability for alleged rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and abductions, by India’s security forces in Kashmir. At the same time, he dissuaded youth from his constituency from throwing stones at Indian forces in 2010 during a period of heightened civil unrest in the region.

Kashmir witnessed a much higher turnout of voters this year than it has in the previous two decades with many concluding that casting their vote against the BJP was their only way to be heard by New Delhi.

Those sentiments appear to have crystallised in Rashid’s favour in Baramulla.

Tariq Ahmad, 35, a resident of Pattan in the Baramulla district, had never voted before. This time, he voted for Rashid.

“He is in jail, and we feel that this is the only way we can show our solidarity and support for him, through our democratic right,” Ahmad said.

Rashid’s two sons – Abrar Rashid, 23, and Asrar Rashid, 19 – appealed to voters to avenge their father’s arrest by going out to vote. They drew large crowds, particularly young people in northern Kashmir, an area prone to armed unrest.

Abrar said his father’s victory is also for other Kashmiris imprisoned in other parts of India.

“It is very tough for families whose kin are in jail. He can be the voice of those innocent people who are languishing in jail for no reason. He is in jail, and no one can understand the miseries of being jailed better than us. My father can be their voice,” Abrar told Al Jazeera.

Abrar said people came forward to campaign for his father. “It was all voluntary and spontaneous. I just paid 27,000 rupees [$322] for petrol,” he said.

Rashid has petitioned a Delhi court for interim bail to take his oath as a member of parliament.

Win for ‘democracy’, not ‘separatism’

According to analyst Siddiq Wahid, Rashid’s supporters turned out essentially to vote in a referendum against the August 2019 removal of Kashmir’s special status and the months-long crackdown that followed, when even the internet was suspended.

“Rashid’s election means that Kashmir’s voice and its aspiration for political justice for all its peoples are alive and well,” Wahid said.

Kashmir-based political analysts told Al Jazeera on the condition of anonymity that Rashid’s victory should not be read as a “separatist victory” but rather as a victory for democracy in Kashmir.

They argued that the large voter turnout was also due to an absence of threats from armed groups as well as pro-vote messaging from the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which enjoys substantial support in the region. Jamaat-e-Islami Kashmir remains banned, but one of its leaders recently met Home Minister Amit Shah.

In the Khadoor Sahab constituency of the northern state of Punjab, too, it was a democratic vote that has brought Sikh leader Amritpal Singh a win and a seat in India’s parliament.

On June 8, Singh’s parents distributed sweets to guards and jail staff at the high-security prison in Assam where he is being held to celebrate their son’s victory.

“We are very happy. Now we just want Amritpal to be released, so that he can take an oath,” Tarsem Singh, Amritpal’s father, told Al Jazeera.

Some experts view Singh’s victory with concern. Last year, Singh was accused of supporting the Khalistani separatist cause. But his supporters said the young Sikh leader simply advocates for religious adherence and tackling drug usage among Punjabi youth.

Sikhs are a religious minority in India who make up about 58 percent of Punjab’s population. The border state witnessed an armed separatist movement during the 1980s. In recent years, the state, known as India’s bread basket, has found itself in the grip of a drug crisis.

Singh is not the only candidate linked to Sikh separatism who won in Punjab.

Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa, the son of one of the assassins of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, won as an independent from Faridkot as the state’s Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) suffered a massive defeat.

Shamshair Singh Warriach, a journalist and political analyst based in Punjab, ruled out that the vote was for “secessionism”. “People voted for Amritpal because he is now involved in democratic politics,” he said, adding that they support Singh only for his anti-drug activism.

But Singh’s win also comes at a time when the Modi government has been engaged in both domestic and international sparring over Sikh separatism.

‘Counter-assertion’

Since coming to power in 2014, Modi’s government has intensified the pursuit of Sikh separatists and arrested dozens of leaders with alleged links to the Khalistan movement.

As Punjab farmers took to the streets in recent years to protest against Modi government laws, sections of the BJP and its supporters suggested that the protesters were in many cases Khalistan sympathisers.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government and United States prosecutors have accused Indian intelligence agencies of involvement in assassination plots against Sikh leaders on their soil. New Delhi has denied the allegations, though it has agreed to probe the US allegations.

According to Aditya Menon, political editor of the Quint, a Delhi-based news website, Singh and Khalsa appear to be beneficiaries of broader dissatisfaction with mainstream parties in Punjab.

More broadly, he argued, Rashid, Singh and Khalsa have not won in a vacuum.

“We must also note that in the recent decade, there has been a rise of hardline Hindu nationalism and radicalism with the ascent of the BJP, so it’s only natural that there would be a counter-assertion,” he said.