
And most of the respondents rated the quality of the calls as poor or below average.Īt the Charlotte County Jail in Florida, there is no visitation room and no visits through glass. On average, respondents spend $63 each month, with a handful estimating their expenditures at $400 to $500 a month.
JPAY VIDEO VISITS FREE
While Skype and other video platforms like FaceTime or Google Hangouts are free for people on the outside, the price of video calls varies widely from facility to facility. More than one-third of respondents have family members locked up in facilities-mostly jails-that bar face-to-face visits completely. In some cases video is the only way to stay connected. We heard from 161 respondents in 32 states. To understand both the benefits and challenges of video calls, The Marshall Project surveyed families and friends of the incarcerated. When these services don’t work as promised, many struggle to get their money back and have limited consumer protections to advocate for more favorable prices. Advocates for lower phone and video rates in prisons and jails say the companies are profiting from people’s desperation to stay in touch. But many who use the video systems say they’re paying high rates-as much as $1 per minute in some places-for a second-rate service. The companies bill video as a boon for prisoners and their families, offering them a convenient way to stay connected while behind bars. According to their websites, Securus and JPay, two of the leading corrections-focused tech companies, provide video services to 573 facilities nationwide. Today, that number is likely much higher. In 2015, the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit working to reduce mass incarceration, estimated roughly 600 facilities across the country used video. Video calls are the newest trend in revenue-generating communications in prisons and jails. His wife is reduced to a 2-by-3 inch video on his screen and enlarging the video player turns her face into pixels. For starters, April says, the image quality is terrible. He says he has spent thousands of dollars trying to bridge the distance with video calls, but the calls rarely work as expected. Nitashia Johnson for The Marshall Project and The New York Times Letters and artwork sent to Mike April by his wife, Heather April.
