by Bob Walsh
County Sheriffs are elected officials. Typically they have a great deal of autonomy in how they spend their money and how they run their operations, including the local jails.
That being said, in the formerly great state of California there is an organization known as the Board of State and Community Corrections. They are appointed bureaucrats who have a significant amount of say-so on how correctional facilities can and must be run.
On Thursday the board issued rules requiring that future jail facilities must have set-ups for in-person, face-to-face visits between prisoners and their families. In addition currently existing facilities that currently allow in-person visits are prohibited from changing policies to prohibit such visits.
Right now five counties have no in-person jail visiting. Another five counties have no in-person visiting in at least some of their facilities. Ten counties are currently building jails that have no facilities for in-person jail visiting.
Remote video visiting, which is used in these facilities, is much lower in cost to operate than in-person visiting. Also it obviously cuts back on smuggling of contraband into the jails. Some jails even have set-ups for video visiting from locations that are very remote from the jails. This obviously can be helpful to family members who have a difficult time getting to the jails to visit. However, some of these remote visiting centers charge up to $15 for 20 minutes of monitor time.
Last year Governor Moonbeam vetoed a bill that would have required that ALL jail facilities must have in-person visiting facilities not later than 2022.
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