Prison Heartbreak

“As a person who is incarcerated in Pima County Jail, I found it affirming to read Sarah Stillman's article about the replacement of in-person visits with video calls ("The Right to Hug," May 20th).

I am writing this letter from "the hole"-isolated in a cell, with no view of the outside world. For people in my situation, communicating with our family and friends is all that we have.
Remote visits are not a suitable alternative to face-to-face connection.

Stillman describes the technical difficulties; she could have also mentioned how hard it can be for loved ones to get verified by Global Tel"Link (now known as ViaPath) to use its services in the first place. Although some users do get verified quickly, others sit in limbo; trying to get verified can be incredibly frustrating. Even when the service is avail-able, it is often abysmal. Sometimes you can't even place a call, or the static is so bad that nobody can hear you. Or you end up staring at a gray screen, the video feed not working on your end. I didn't have the heart to tell my mother, the last time we had a so-called video visit, that I couldn't see her on my screen, while she paid twenty-five cents a minute to see me. In 2022, our jail had a higher per-capita death rate than Rikers. Given that in-person visits have violence, it is essential that jails support the ability of incarcerated individuals to maintain family bonds.” - Zobella Brazil Vinik

This seems like such a goddam no-brainer it just makes it that much harder to fathom why of course it's not going to change at all anytime soon.