Davis adding video system to county jail

FARMINGTON — Technology is allowing the Davis County Sheriff's Office to change the way people can visit jail inmates.

By the end of 2006, the Davis County Jail will be among three jails in Utah that feature video visitation.

Cache County and Washington County already have the technology in their jails. The systems allow jail officers to keep inmates in housing units instead of escorting them to visiting areas.

The officers like it because less inmate movement means more officer safety. But visitors don't like it because it's hard enough visiting loved ones through safety glass.

Visitors to the Cache and Washington county jails sit in front of a video screen and talk to an inmate, who sits in front of a similar one in his housing area. Each video unit is topped with a video camera so parties can see each other, and they speak over a monitored phone line.

When the 400-bed expansion to the Davis County Jail is completed toward the end of 2006, most visits will be made by video, though the jail will retain a few of its face-to-face, no-contact visiting booths.

In 2005, the Davis County Commission approved $217,438.80 for the sheriff's office to purchase the video units from Courtvision Communications, based in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

It's technology that has some jail commanders around the state drooling, and Kevin McLeod, Davis County chief deputy sheriff, understands why.

Currently, his deputies in the jail escort a group of inmates from their housing units to a visiting area for a 45-minute visit. Because of the manpower it takes to monitor the inmates, visits only happen four days a week and have to be scheduled well in advance.

After the visit, the inmates are taken back to their units and another group of inmates is brought to the visiting area.

But when the new system goes online, an arriving visitor will talk to a command center, which will then page the inmate and tell him or her to go to a video screen in his housing unit. The visitor will sit in a room with a bank of video screens, one of which will be linked to the inmate.

Visiting hours could be extended to six or seven days a week and could be available from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The $217,000 price tag may sound like a lot of money for a system of interlinked televisions and cameras, but the jail will have 25 public stations and 41 inmate stations.