Inmates at Newton County Jail may soon have another option for visiting with family after the Board of Supervisors gave Sheriff Joedy Pennington permission March 2 to enter into a contract to provide video visitation services to the county.
By providing the option of video visitation, which is similar to video chat service such as Skype and FaceTime, Pennington said inmates would have greater opportunity to visit with family while reducing the risk of contraband being smuggled into the jail.
“It will cut down on personal visitation and therefore cut down on people bringing stuff into the jail also,” he said.
The proposed contract would provide seven video kiosks to be installed throughout the jail, with one kiosk in each of the four men’s dorms, one in lockdown, one in the women’s dorm and one in the front lobby. Pennington said the visits would operate much like a prepaid phone card, with time credits on a card.
“It will have money on a card, so they can use it anytime they want to,” he said. “It will cost $7.50 for 15 minutes. That’s the rate this company charges, and the county will get back 20 percent.”
There will be no upfront fee for the kiosks, Pennington said. The only cost to the county would be running fiber optic cable to the jail to support the video streams.
“Now, I would ask that whatever proceeds that are to come from this be put in a separate fund just for maintenance on the jail,” he said.
Newton County Jail does bring in money from items purchased at the commissary for prison improvements, but there are specific restrictions on what those funds can be spent on, Pennington said. By using the 20 percent collected from video visitation, the county would be able to make repairs and upgrades in other areas of the jail without taking money from other areas.
The Board of Supervisors agreed video visitation would be a benefit for both the county and the inmates and gave Pennington the green light to move forward after the county attorney reviewed the contract.
