The Problem

The United States has the highest incarcerated population in the world, with 2.1 million Americans behind bars. Of the imprisoned adults, 54% have one or more minor children, representing 2.7 million or 1 in 28 children with an incarcerated parent. 

These children often suffer significant adverse effects from parental incarceration, including financial hardship, housing instability, social and emotional challenges, negative educational outcomes, changing caregivers, and increased health issues.

According to a Child Protection Best Practices Bulletin, Connecting Children With Incarcerated Parents, when a parent is incarcerated, their children often experience feelings of guilt,  shame, anger, and anxiety;  social stigma;  the inability to cope with stress; disruption in development; depression; and distrust of authority figures, which can lead to the poor performance in school and behavioral problems. However, the bulletin also highlights that children maintaining relationships with their incarcerated parents can substantially decrease many of these adverse physical, emotional, and mental health effects.  

According to the same bulletin, children benefit from visiting their incarcerated parents because they can express their emotional reactions to the separation; develop a more realistic understanding of their parents' circumstances; see their parents are safe; maintain an existing relationship which can contribute to successful family reunification; and set realistic expectations for their parents' future. In addition, maintaining this relationship has been correlated with improved prisoner behavior and reduced rates of re-incarceration, which benefit prisons.

The primary method for children to maintain a relationship with their incarcerated parents has been in-person prison visits. However, families face many barriers to in-person visits, including (1) difficulties scheduling visits, (2) availability of working caregivers, (3) prisons located far away, (4) unaffordability of transportation costs, (5) child unfriendly prison policies, and (6) hostile prison environments that can be traumatic for children. As a result, more than 50% of incarcerated parents in federal and state prisons have no contact with their children.

Prison video visits, first started over a decade ago, initially had limited success due to (1) technical problems and poor video quality, (2) high costs despite the availability of free services such as FaceTime and Google Hangout, and (3) families without access to the Internet. 

During the pandemic, however, video conferencing solutions such as Zoom have become widely available and adopted, more reliable, and have a free option. This dynamic has created an opportunity for prisons to adopt a new video visit model that addresses previous shortcomings. However, it is essential that prison video visits supplement, not replace, existing child support systems, including relatives, caregivers, caseworkers, social workers, and schools. 

Recommendations and Analysis

1)    Prisons should offer at least one free prison video visit per week, with no hidden costs, to ensure all children have an opportunity to maintain a relationship with their incarcerated parents regardless of the family's financial situation. 

This is especially important since the cost of prison visits for families already struggling financially can be overwhelming. In a survey of families with an incarcerated member, one of three families was in debt, and two of three families had difficulty meeting basic needs due to visitation costs. 

2)    Prisons should minimize video conferencing costs by renegotiating current contracts or conducting a request-for-proposal (RFP) process with new vendors. 

The prevalence of free video conferencing solutions has given prisons additional leverage in price negotiations. Video conferencing is often bundled with other Internet and telecom services at no extra cost. If funding is still necessary, prisons can consider sources such as government funding or grants, foundations, prisoner general welfare fund, and community-based partnerships. 

3)    Prisons should adopt a highly reliable video conferencing solution that minimizes technology problems. 

Zoom has set the standard with high-quality audio and video designed to work well on unstable or weak networks. In addition, prisons should work with their video conferencing vendor to simplify the process of scheduling video conferences and adopt technology-friendly user policies. 

4)    Prisons should provide families with information about options for free or low-cost Internet access. 

Families without home Internet access can utilize community-based organizations, such as churches and nonprofit organizations, which provide access for community members. In addition, there are organizations and programs, such as EveryoneOn and the FCC's Lifeline Program, that provide discounted Internet for qualifying low-income consumers, which may make home Internet more affordable for these families. Given the lost cost of disseminating information with folks who are already interacting with prisons and that prisons can benefit from family video visits through improved prisoner behavior, prison policymakers’ best interests are aligned with families in helping them access the Internet.  

Limitations to the video visit model are (1) it does not directly address certain adverse effects such as financial hardship or housing instability, and (2) it is not effective if the children did not have an existing, productive relationship with the parents before incarceration. Despite these limitations, free prison video visits have advantages over in-person visits, including (1) eliminating transportation costs to the prison, (2) removing transportation and waiting time, (3) simplifying scheduling logistics for children and caregivers, and (4) providing a safe space for children free from invasive security procedures and often traumatic prison environments.   

Several states have successfully implemented this new video visit model. For example, in March 2020, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections started offering free video visits when in-person visits were suspended and logged 130,000 video visits by August 2020. Prisoners are currently allowed five free video visits per month, and the agency has announced that video visits will remain after in-person visits are safe to resume. The Vermont Department of Corrections renegotiated their contract with their video conferencing vendor that resulted in prisoners being provided two free five-minute calls and one free 30-minute video visit per week via a prison-provided tablet. 

Conclusion

Though, children with incarcerated parents suffer adverse social, emotional, and health effects leading to poor educational outcomes and behavioral problems. Children maintaining a relationship with their incarcerated parents can improve outcomes for children, parents, and the prisons in the right circumstances. However, the child-parent relationship is difficult to maintain through in-person prison visits due to affordability, access, and appropriateness barriers for children and their caregivers. Nonetheless, the pandemic has created an opportunity for a new prison video visit model that removes the in-person barriers and resolves pre-pandemic video visits' affordability and poor quality problems.

Policy recommendations include: (1) offering free video visits to prisoners, (2) negotiating video vendor contracts to minimize costs, (3) adopting a high-quality solution utilizing improved technology, and (4) providing information to families about alternative Internet access options.

Pennsylvania and Vermont have successfully implemented prison video visit models that facilitate opportunities for children for whom in-person visits did not work to maintain a relationship with their incarcerated parents. Now, other prison policymakers should follow suit.