Photo by AlbinoFlea

In most traditional jails and prisons, visitors speak to inmates over the phone and with a pane of plexiglass separating the two. But as of mid-July, the friends and family of those detained at the D.C. Jail have been ushered into a room lined with TV screens and video cameras at a nearby building. Gone are the in-person visits, replaced instead with a form of video-conferencing that D.C. corrections officials laud for its convenience and prison rights activists lambast for removing the last human contact that many inmates have to the outside world.

At a community meeting called by D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson in Deanwood yesterday, Thomas Faust, the director of the D.C. Department of Corrections, defended the system, saying that the 54 monitors located outside of the D.C. Jail allow more visits, spare visitors the unpleasant experience of going through the jail’s security and are more cost-effective.

All told, he explained, the jail can now handle 400 visits a day, has expanded visiting times from two 30-minute sessions a week to two 45-minute sessions, and offers weekend visits. All of this, he argued, at substantial savings over in-person visits—the video visits cost some $420,000 less a year in staffing costs. The point of the video visitation system—provided free of charge by the company that runs the jail’s phone system—he said, was to “increase accessibility for family and friends.”

But to many of the residents and advocates that came to the meeting, Faust’s talk of efficiency seemed to miss the point that in-person visits provide a vital connection to friends and family that will help reintegrate a prisoner once they’re out.

“It might be plexiglass, but it’s way more personal than looking at someone on a screen,” said Ricky Bryant, who served 32 years in prison and said that in-person visits—albeit through plexiglass—helped him prepare for the post-prison transition. “You can’t personalize someone on a TV screen.”

Others agreed—including the Post’s editorial board—calling the video visitation system “inhumane” and complaining that while the D.C. Jail may be joining a trend taking place across the country, it erred in completely abandoning in-person visits. (Faust said that in-person visits were still allowed for attorneys, clergy and in case-by-case situations.)

“The Department of Corrections got this half-right…but the department was wrong to sacrifice in-person visits,” said Sarah Cummings, an associate at the Hogan Lovells law firm who has taken on the task of organizing a coalition against the video visitation system. She argued that other jurisdictions that have implemented the system use it to complement traditional in-person visits, and that the D.C. Jail’s policy unfairly targets inmates who haven’t yet been taken to trial—fully 63 percent of the close to 1,800 people held at the jail.

Cummings and others also noted a glaring irony in the D.C. Jail’s new policy—convicted felons who are transferred into the federal penitentiary system and sent thousands of miles away to serve their terms can often receive in-person visits, though while they’re standing trial only miles from their family they can’t.

Mendelson, who had called the meeting after having heard a number of complaints, seemed to hedge towards keeping the video visitation system, saying that in an era of shrinking municipal budgets, the less money that was spent on staffing in-person visits meant more that could be allocated to other valuable programs to transition offenders back into society. He also seemed to appreciate that the new system allowed more visits than before, a point that Faust sought to drive home when he said that he was considering putting video terminals into libraries and community centers to make the visits even more convenient.

But that efficiency seemed an almost callus substitute for human contact for many at the meeting. “Family is the nucleus for the whole rehabilitation,” said one man, who had also served time in prison. “When the family is involved, a person is less likely to get back into the jail system.”