DannyBoyinExile

Another way that TDCJ has moved into the modern era is its video visitation program. I made a joke about it once, saying that someone in an office somewhere had a brainstorm and said, “Why are we letting our inmates get a visit every weekend for free – when we could be doing it electronically, and charging them ten bucks for it?” haha
I was only joking, of course. TDCJ may get a percentage of the proceeds, but it’s a Securus operation, so THEY make most of the money. Besides – if it were all about the money, they’d let us get as many as we wanted! As it stands now, we can only get a video visit once per month.
At one time, we could schedule them for any day of the week, as long as they had an open slot for the time we wanted. Which was cool, because it was much more convenient for our families (especially the ones who live in different time zones), and we could even selectively schedule them to miss a day of work! 🙂 Alas, that didn’t last, because they simply don’t have enough staff to run visitation every day of the week anymore.
Now we can get them on any Saturday or Sunday, between 8am and 5pm – but sometimes there’s STILL an issue of staff shortages, and they’re cancelled from time to time.
In theory, when the Administration cancels your video visit, all you have to do is contact Securus and reschedule it. In reality, it has never went that smoothly for me. First of all, it’s extremely difficult to get in touch with a real-live person, to explain your problem to. When my wife FINALLY got in touch with someone, and asked for an alternate weekend, they told her she would have to wait until the following month, because we already had one this month!
Either my wife had reverted to speaking in German – or the person didn’t listen to a single thing she said! After arguing that we never got our visit, and it wasn’t US who cancelled it, but the Administration, she had to file a formal complaint (via email, of course) to reschedule the visit. It was months later – after we’d already forgotten about the visit and the ten bucks they beat us for – that they sent her a credit voucher to schedule another visit. Of course, we could still only get one visit that month, so the visit we missed was lost to posterity – but at least they made up for the ten dollars.
Aside from that, video visits can be very convenient for people out there – especially the ones who live so far away that it would be impossible to see their favorite inmate otherwise. This is available to anyone, in any country. (Anyone with a computer, that is!)
There are often technical difficulties. Sometimes the connection is so bad that I wonder if they’re using the old dial-up modems instead of WiFi! It can be bad for my blood pressure when the screen suddenly goes blank, or the sound goes out (or vice-versa, for the person I’m talking to). But I’ve learned to be patient, and it usually comes back on fairly quickly, and we typically do get most of our hour to visit with each other.
And it IS awesome, to be able to visit with someone, practically in-person, who I wouldn’t have been able to see any other way. They can even snap “screen shots”, and have pictures to mark the occasion. (Some of mine are even displayed on the blog somewhere).
Like anything else, we have to take the good with the bad, and make the most of the opportunities we have in here. There’s not an inmate in TDCJ who wouldn’t be ecstatic when the guards told him to get ready, because he has a video visit scheduled. (Unless he’s an idiot!) We may not be able to hug our loved ones, or gorge ourselves on snacks – but for an inmate, it’s almost like spending an hour in the free world, and that’s nothing to complain about. So says DannyBoy.