Imagine you’re a young child looking forward to the holidays. The days are getting shorter and the ever present darkness seems to bring a melancholy mood over the festivities. This is because one of your parents is behind bars. It’s fairly common, the ACLU estimates that more than 2.7 million children have at least one parent in prison.
Just imagine how difficult the holidays would be in the situation. Your parent is still in the picture but you cannot communicate with them. You could try to give them a phone call on the holiday, but the phone services that you use generally cut out and are very expensive. And you have been told that a physical visit would be impossible. Your parent is simply too far away and it is too expensive to drive all the way to their prison. It is as if your parent has been removed by death or a nasty divorce.
Securus Technologies, a prison telecommunications company, provides more than 178 prisons across this country with video visitation technology. It is a new innovation that the company is eager to advertise. In fact, Securus is in the midst of an advertising campaign promoting the benefits of prisoner video visitation rights.
This company should be proud of what they have accomplished. This kind of technology can mitigate the circumstance described above. A young child can schedule a video visitation with their parents during the holidays. They do not have to waste any time driving all the way to the prison, going through embarrassing security checks and waiting inside of and intimidating prison. They can simply log in, enjoy the festive scene and to be taken to any part of the house. This technology can save childhood experiences like this for millions of young people across the country.
