Karen Weaver's Fight for Clean Water November 2017 | Page 36

VIDEO VISITATION
Travis County Texas ended all in-person visitations in May 2013, leaving video
visitation as the exclusive method for people on the outside to communicate with
the incarcerated. But Travis County is only one facility of many across the country
that want to replace the old technology with video and abolish in-person visitation
altogether. Over 600 prisons in 46 states have some sort of video visitation system.
Every year, more of those facilities do away with in-person visitation.
Mental health experts say video only visitation has a deleterious effect on inmates
by eliminating the anticipation of the arrival of friends and family, and the eye and
physical contact necessary to maintain the social and support bonds that
confinement makes more difficult to maintain. This contributes to higher levels of
violence and depression in jails and prisons. It also reduces vital connections with
the very support systems inmates will need when they return to society.
CONT’D